Ethics and Discovery - the Nuts and Bolts of Ethical Practice

Discovery can be the most important phase of litigation. Doing it right takes planning and attention to detail. 

How evidence is found, how it is used, and how mistakes in its handling are addressed can present significant ethical issues. No matter how careful we are, mistakes can happen. This program provides a real-world guide to substantial ethical issues that arise in discovery practice and how to avoid violating the ethics rules.

Ms. Simon will discuss:

• The duty of candor to the tribunal during discovery

• Ethical issues relating to client dishonesty

• Inadvertent disclosure privileged documents and their handling

• Ethics in depositions - conferring with witnesses, using video depositions and more

• Ethical issues in data mining of discovery documents

• Issues involving metadata in electronic files - documents, email, text messages

• Supervision and security issues that arise in discovery

• Ethical issues related to social media discovery

Learning Objectives:

1. Review attorneys' duties of candor to the tribunal

2. Identify and develop plans for addressing ethical issues that arise in discovery, like handling metadata, inadvertent disclosure, and social media discovery

3.  Gain insight into the applicable ethics rules governing discovery

4.  Discuss best practices for ethical compliance during discovery