By Alan Cohen
Present at the Creation
Our picks for six of the most important e-discovery trailblazers.
TO THOSE OF US ON THE OUTSIDE, ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY MIGHT SEEM LIKE
an unlikely place to find passion and fervor. But that is what makes the forerunners
in this space so unusual. They come from different backgrounds. Some are lawyers,
some are technology experts, and some are a little of both. But these e-discovery
leaders all share an unmistakable and seemingly unbreakable dedication to an area
of the law that makes many of us scratch our heads. They have explained e-discovery,
quantified it, and helped shape the rules, the case law, and even the business models.
Most of the pioneers listed below have been at this for decades, but like the field itself, they’re just getting started. We still may not get as enthusiastic about e-discovery
as they do, but thanks to their efforts, we’re no longer mystified by it.
MARTHA DAWSON
PARTNER, K&L GATES
DAWSON SAW IT all coming—not just
how e-discovery was going to change
the practice of law, but how it could
also change the business of law. Before
most lawyers were using email, she was
tweaking—and sometimes inventing—
processes to ensure that her firm was
getting both sides of the equation right.
Dawson’s foray into e-discovery dates
back to the early 1990s, when her firm—
then known as Preston Gates & Ellis—
represented Alaska in the Exxon Valdez
litigation and Microsoft Corporation in
its tangles with the U.S. Department of
Justice (the latter eventually expanding
into the famous antitrust trial of 1998).
Both Exxon and Microsoft had
adopted early email systems, meaning
that Dawson, a litigator, had to get up to
speed on electronic information. With
the learning came a revelation. As electronic systems caught on, the volume of
documents would likely skyrocket—and
so would the costs of discovery. The
traditional approach, where associates—
and even partners—reviewed documents, had to go. So in 1997 Dawson
founded Preston Gates’s e-Discovery
Analysis and Technology group, or e-DAT. It was considered to be the first of
its kind—a practice group dedicated exclusively to e-discovery—and it was innovative, using project-based attorneys
for review. These lawyers worked only
on e-discovery and could be billed at
lower rates than associates.
The impetus behind e-DAT wasn’t
just to serve existing clients. “It became
clear that there would be opportunities
to expand the client base,” says Helen
Bergman Moure, a former partner who
worked in the group for more than a decade. She is now at her own e-discovery
consulting and law firm, Lex Aperta.
Dawson wasn’t done, however. In
2000, frustrated that the available technology was ill-suited for the burgeoning volume of electronic information,
she and several partners—Martin Smith,
David McDonald, and then–
managing partner Gerald Johnson—decided
to develop their own. They brought in
veteran software developer Skip Walter, whose team spent weeks observing
Dawson’s group and identifying where
automation could boost efficiency (a
15-by-3-foot array of sticky notes,
known as “Martha’s Wall,” detailed every
step of the e-DAT process). The resulting software, called Patterns, worked so
well that Preston Gates spun off a separate company, Attenex, to market it. (In
2008 Attenex was sold to FTI Consulting Inc. for $88 million).
By coupling the technology with its
lawyer-review model, Dawson says e-DAT could offer clients savings of over
50 percent compared to traditional
methods of document review. Not surprisingly, other firms have since created e-discovery groups, and vendors
have embraced project-based attorneys
as a way to lower costs. For e-DAT that
