Committee Discusses CM/ECF at 2004 Annual Spring Meeting

The Court Administration Committee met to a standing-room only house at the Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 17, 2004. The first order of business was to introduce the Court Administration Committee, which was formed last year with the first meeting chaired by Co-chair Richard Kipperman of San Diego, Calif., and a chapter 7 panel trustee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California. The committee's goal is to provide a national forum for improving the relationships between the practitioners and the administrative officials necessary to the court functions. (Office of the Clerk, AOUST).
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Electronic Discovery Addressed

A panel of experts recently discussed the rapidly developing standards that apply to e-discovery and how and when they should be applied in bankruptcy litigation at the 2004 ABI Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. Requests for the production of electronic data are now the norm in civil litigation. The sheer volume of electronic data is staggering and is counted not in terms of megabytes but terabytes—and one terabyte equals 500 billion typewritten pages. The panel also addressed where you draw the line between:

• Requests for the discovery of relevant and non-privileged electronic data that should be readily and affordably accessible to the producing party (e.g. e-mails stored as active data); and
• Other types of computer-generated data that may not be readily accessible (e.g. information stored as archival data).

The panel included:

H. Slayton Dabney Jr.—McGuireWoods LLP; Richmond, Va., Moderator

Hon. Cecelia G. Morris—U.S. Bankruptcy Court; Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Michael Prounis—Evidence Exchange; New York

Hon. Shira Scheindlin—U.S. District Court; New York

To read the handout from that session, click here 

Committee Seeks Article Submissions, Panelists

The committee solicits all ABI members to submit short articles (500-1,000 words) for publication in the committee’s e-newsletter. If you would like to submit an article, please contact Richard Kipperman. The committee is also looking for members who would like to participate in panel presentations.