ILTACON starts this Sunday, August 23rd! Here are five ILTACON 2026 sessions to check out at this year’s conference!

ILTACON 2026 will be conducted August 23 through 27 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN, with four full days of sessions next Monday, August 24 through Thursday, August 27! Selecting five sessions to highlight is tough, but I’m giving it a shot anyway. 😉 So, here are five ILTACON 2026 sessions to check out at this year’s conference!

Mon Aug 24, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM CT (1 hour, 30 min)

eDiscovery Roundtable: The Destruction and Spoliation Edition (Tennessee AB)

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, we examine how both significant disasters and everyday data failures affect the work of e-discovery and legal data professionals as they preserve data for litigation and other legal proceedings. From truly tragic events, such as September 11 and catastrophic hurricanes, to almost comical tales of modern data lost, we’ll examine questions such as: 

How much data do your organization and your clients really need to preserve?

When does data destruction become spoliation?

What are some of the best practices for data preservation?

What special considerations are there for preservation of mobile data and social media?

What role does AI play in data preservation?

We’ll have our traditional review of relevant case law along with our panel of technologists and lawyers analyzing these issues and more. As always, the Roundtable is your opportunity to join the discussion and, for 2026, share your thoughts on historical events and modern data challenges.

Speakers: Scott Milner, Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, L.L.P.; David Horrigan, Discovery Counsel and Legal Education Director, Relativity ODA LLC; Deeanna Fleener, Senior Manager, Practice Support, K&L Gates; Marcin Krieger, Associate, Reed Smith LLP; Julie Lewis, President & CEO, Digital Mountain, Inc.; Alex Sappington, Co-CEO, Page Vault, Inc.

Mon Aug 24, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CT (1 hour)

New Rules, New Risks: Discovery Obligations in the AI-assisted Workplace (Tennessee AB)

As organizations adopt more AI-driven tools inside their everyday workflows, a new category of discoverable information is emerging that most teams are not prepared for. Internal chatbots, drafting assistants, automated decision tools, and enterprise LLM deployments are all generating content that can fall within discovery and the question is no longer if it will show up in matters, but when. This session takes a practical look at what this means for eDiscovery teams in 2026. We will talk about where AI-generated data actually lives, which pieces are potentially discoverable (prompts, traces, outputs, version history, logs, vector databases, etc.), and how these systems create new risks around accuracy, transparency, and documentation. We will also discuss what counsel needs to know when advising clients who rely on AI tools day-to-day.

Attendees will leave with a grounded understanding of the emerging obligations, the questions they need to raise early in a matter, and the steps they can take now to avoid being blindsided later.

Speakers: Eric Robinson, Vice President, Global Advisory Services & Strategic Solutions, KLDiscovery; Meredith Perlman, Senior Counsel, Hilgers PLLC; Jigna Dalal, Litigation Support and eDiscovery Director, Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.; Chuck Kellner, Strategic Discovery Advisor, Everlaw.

Tue Aug 25, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM CT (1 hour, 30 min)

Trust but Verify: Validating AI Workflows in eDiscovery (Tennessee AB)

As Generative AI (GenAI) becomes a standard component of the eDiscovery lifecycle in 2026, the primary challenge has evolved from “How do we use this?” to “How do we prove it worked and scale it responsibly?”

This session bridges the gap between technical execution and strategic governance. We will move beyond the “black box” approach to explore how legal organizations can transform their workflows by elevating data, information strategy, and human capability into strategic assets in a defensible, scalable, and repeatable manner.

Speakers: Doug Austin, Editor, eDiscovery Today; Tiana Van Dyk, Managing Director, Canada, Epiq; Cristin Traylor, Senior Director, AI Transformation & Law Firm Strategy, Relativity; Umair Muhajir, Vice-President, AI & Review Services at DISCO.

Wed Aug 26, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CT (1 hour)

Data Science as a Core Capability for the Modern Legal Team (Tennessee AB)

This session is structured as an expert conversation that opens with why data science is now a core legal capability, moves through stakeholder education and decision-making, then closes with the competitive advantage created by a mature legal data science program.

• Why legal teams need internal capability to understand and evaluate rapidly changing technologies. 
• Why firms can no longer rely solely on vendors or external experts. 
• Why data science must become an organizational competency rather than a niche skill. 
• How the opening sets expectations for the rest of the discussion.

Speakers: Igor Labutov, Chief AI Officer, Legal Solutions, Epiq; James Ding, CEO, Draftwise; Alexis Mitchell, AI Senior Consultant, Syllo.

Thu Aug 27, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM CT (1 hour)

Managing Scope, Spend, and Surprises in eDiscovery (Tennessee AB)

Discovery budgets fail when estimation, communication, and vendor strategy fall out of alignment. Too often, cost surprises damage client trust and force teams to absorb avoidable expenses. This session provides practical guidance on building defensible discovery budgets from RFP through final invoice, managing scope changes, and aligning vendor relationships to support cost predictability.

Attendees will gain tools and frameworks to plan, defend, and deliver discovery budgets with confidence.

Speakers: Brett Burney, eDiscovery Consultant, Burney Consultants; Mike Gaudet, Senior Managing Director, J.S. Held Inc.; James Vinson, Manager of eData Client Services, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, L.L.P.

I’ll preview a fuller set of sessions and other happenings each day of the conference next week, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, that’s five ILTACON 2026 sessions to check out at this year’s conference!

So, what do you think? Are you planning to attend ILTACON 2026?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.