Are you one of the rising stars of eDiscovery? You could be one and (if you qualify) you could even nominate yourself to be one!

As a part of this year’s eDiscovery Day, the Rising Stars of eDiscovery are five eDiscovery practitioners with five years or less in the field (as of December 3, 2026) who are shaping the future of eDiscovery. That’s five years or less in eDiscovery – not five years or less overall.

Practitioners based in the United States or Canada who work in eDiscovery, legal operations, litigation support, information governance or a directly related discipline, and who sit in one of the following:

• In-house at a corporation or other organization
• At a law firm
• In government — federal, state, provincial, local, regulatory or law enforcement

Vendors, service providers and the five organizations presenting the award are ineligible to win.

The Rising Stars of eDiscovery will be nominated by the community, chosen by the five organizations behind eDiscovery Day, and introduced live during the keynote webinar on eDiscovery Day, Thursday, December 3.

As discussed in the Program Rules here, the Rising Stars of eDiscovery will be presented to five recipients on eDiscovery Day, December 3rd, 2026, as decided by a panel of one judge from each of the five eDiscovery Day sponsor organizations:

• Exterro
• ACEDS
• eDiscovery Today
• EDRM
• LegalOps.com

You can nominate anyone who meets the award criteria for recognition, including yourself.

What do the Rising Stars of eDiscovery receive? Winners will be:

Introduced live on the keynote webinar: Winners will be announced before one of the largest professional eDiscovery audiences of the year—the attendees of the keynote webinar on eDiscovery Day—with your name, your title and your organization displayed for the whole audience.

Given a press tour across the profession: Every winner will appear on the following professional platforms in December and January:

• Featured guest on the EDRM podcast
• Featured guest on Exterro’s podcast
• In a one-to-one interview published by ACEDS
• In a one-to-one interview with me at eDiscovery Today

There will also be a co-branded announcement of the winners, carrying all five organizations’ names, a digital badge suitable for use on LinkedIn and in email, and placement on a permanent Rising Stars of eDiscovery page on ediscoveryday.com.

Nominations close in exactly one month – on November 6, 2026. The link to the nomination form is here.

If you know someone who qualifies as a rising star of eDiscovery according to the rules above, please feel free to nominate them – even if you are that rising star of eDiscovery!

So, what do you think? Are you a rising star of eDiscovery or know someone who is? If so, please nominate them! And 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.