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The Sedona Conference

In the late 1990’s and the first part of the 21st Century, litigation and in particular the discovery phase of litigation, has gone through a tremendous transformation. The signal events were the development of the DuPont legal model in the early 1990, and the explosion of electronic media open to discovery in sizes that were difficult if impossible to manage.

In an attempt to be more innovative and to control cost DuPont began to subject its legal department to some disciplines and best practices that were expected of the other business units within the corporation. A signal part of this effort was the use of traditional business processes such as Six Sigma. General Electric quickly followed suit. It would be hard to imagine two more dominant corporations with a track record for innovation and incubators for best practices. As would be expected, many other companies have taken the same road as GE and DuPont to control legal costs.

The explosion of electronic communication, cheap storage and ease of communication has logarithmically increased the size and availability of populations in the discovery phase of litigation. The size of these electronic populations has vastly escalated the cost of the discovery process.

In 1997 Richard G. Braman brought together a group of individuals that were being severely impacted by the spiraling cost of litigation and corporations interested in controlling and reducing that cost. The group consisted of people from corporate law departments, law firms, judges, governmental sources and suppliers to the legal market. This was the beginning of the Sedona Conference, which continues to this day. The Sedona Conference is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

The result of the first Sedona Working Group was an exploration of the cost constraints in large electronic populations and possible solutions. Thoughtful papers and discussions using dialogue as an approach have opened many areas of interest. The key decision in the Zubulake case on electronic discovery quoted heavily from the Sedona Working Group publication on e-discovery and greatly enhanced the visibility of the organization.

Sedona has continued to grow in stature and the amount of useful material produced. We are fortunate in that Jim Michalowicz, an ACT Director, was a participant in the original Sedona gathering and was an early participant in the development of the DuPont legal model. Additionally, Macyl Burke, another ACT Director is an attendee and writer in various Sedona efforts including the Search and Retrieval Working Group and the Working Group on the RFP Process.

We would urge anyone with an interest in controlling legal cost or the e-discovery process to visit The Sedona Conference and DuPont Legal Model websites for additional information. They are a rich source.