It is a crazy world out there, and what makes the news is mostly bad news. One of the things I love about Thanksgiving is the reminder to focus on the positive—most of us have so many things to be grateful for. Personally, I am extremely grateful to be living a great life, with my fabulous wife, our loving family (10 members of which are visiting with us this Thanksgiving!), a fascinating job, a tremendous work team of smart, dedicated professionals, and some of the best clients anywhere. I am also thankful to be involved in the field of e-discovery, which I find to be one of the most friendly and collaborative groups in the practice of law. 

That aspect of e-discovery practice should not be taken for granted. Over the past 20 years, I have gotten to know, and become friendly with, literally hundreds of legal professionals in the e-discovery industry. Some of you have been involved in this as long as I have—i.e., since before the beginning—and we have been on this unique journey together for two decades or more. We are a small but close-knit group. Others are newer to the field, but whether you have been involved in e-discovery for 2 years or 20, you have been welcomed into our e-discovery family. I don’t know the exact size of the extended family today, but one indicator is the Reed Smith E-Discovery App—we now have over 100 contributors who have voluntarily shared their work product with others in the industry through the App—and, as of this writing, the E-Discovery App has been downloaded to over 4,200 personal cellphones. 

Our e-discovery family is not limited to clients, in-house lawyers, and lawyers at our peer law firms. It also includes a group of savvy technologists, knowledgeable discovery consultants, brilliant data scientists, and other legal professionals. It includes more than two dozen judges, many of whom I have been privileged to get to know personally as well as professionally—an opportunity I never would have had through traditional litigation; and the family includes agency officials, regulators, and even lawyers on the other side of the “v.” They may be fierce adversaries in litigation matters, but then we all try to take off our litigation hats and work collaboratively on educational programs and to build consensus on efforts to advance the legal industry and the interests of all parties, through organizations like EDRM, The Sedona Conference, EDI, and others. We all interact virtually, and we get together periodically at industry conferences, to share ideas and to stay up to speed on the latest law and technology in this ever-evolving field.

So Happy Thanksgiving and thank you to all of you: clients, colleagues, jurists, advisors, worthy adversaries, and other talented professionals on this shared e-discovery journey. I am deeply grateful to be your fellow-traveler!