My Fallow Americans

Maybe the campaign or Lehman Bros, Merrill Lynch, AIG, FNMA, FMAC or Bear Stearns have me in high dudgeon, or perhaps it's because I can't see Russia from my porch, but I'm concerned.  Knit your brows with me, and ponder these trouble tickets:

• Emotional and tactical issues deflect focus and energy from meritorious ones.
• A cultural abyss separating those who value expertise and those who belittle it. 
• Entrenched interests cling to methods built on brute force or false assumptions. 
• Powerful interests stoke the fires of fear, uncertainty and doubt for their own benefit.
• Seeking to curtail rights, those same interests play on our abhorrence of terrorism.  Justice gets short shrift.
• Those trusted to expose waste and misdirection are its beneficiaries.
• Deluded by past glory, we cling to yesterday’s flotsam instead of swimming toward tomorrow with all our might . 

Of course, you recognized this as a list of problems plaguing electronic discovery.

No?  What were you thinking? 

Really?

Wow, I missed that completely. 

 

The pebble in my shoe today is the whirlwind of blame swirling about e-discovery, and the rhetoric for limiting access to ESI.  "E-discovery is crushing the system," cries Chicken Little, Esquire, and the "fix" sought just incidentally tilts the playing field toward those who have profited from information technology by, inter alia, eliminating the records management personnel needed when evidence was ink on paper. 

Truth be told, EDD is grossly underutilized in the overwhelming majority of cases.  Producing parties have enjoyed years of EDD snow days.   They didn't have to buy the tractor because the competition was still plowing with a mule team, too.

Here's a crazy notion: Could we esteem intelligence, ability and forward thinking once more?  Is it elitist (and therefore reprehensible) to give the edge to those who get it, or must we devalue knowledge so that the kids who cut class feel good about themselves?  (Yes, I'm still talking about e-discovery).

But, I'm encouraged by strong, clear and intelligent voices advocating change.  I refer, of course, to Ralph Losey and others who speak up for the evidence and for protecting a litigant's right to get it.  Ralph's "Sunday sermons" are always fresh and thoughtful.  His latest on his "E-Discovery Team" is worth your time.  You know he knows his stuff.  After all, parts of Ralph's state are only 90 miles from Cuba.

Comments

[Guy Wiggins]

Nice post! Pretty much sums up my views towards EDD and the country these days :) Let's see if Lincoln was right that you can't fool all the people all time time - I'm beginning to have my doubts.