Seamus E. Byrne's - In Pursuit of Relevance

The Conference

On 20-21 July 2009, I was pleased to serve as the Chairperson of the inaugural LexisNexis e-Discovery & Digital Forensics Conference, held at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel in Hong Kong.

LexisNexis assembled an all-star cast of the brightest legal and technical practitioners who are considered leaders in the e-discovery and digital forensics industries, not just in Hong Kong or their home jurisdiction, but the world.

The Speakers

Menachem Hasofer, Partner with Mayer Brown JSM discussed the recent Civil Justice Reforms and its relevance to e-discovery. Menachem also highlighted the emerging "litigation identity" of Hong Kong.

Torsten Duwenhorst, Associate Director with Ernst & Young Advisory Services outlined his experiences in assisting large organisations to comply with e-discovery and other compliance requirements involving digital evidence.

David C. Shonka, Principal Deputy General Counsel with the US Federal Trade Commission conveyed war stories and pitfalls to avoid when an organisation is involved in cross-border litigation with a US government agency.

Dr K. P. Chow with the University of Hong Kong and Gary Clarke with the Hong Kong Police provided practical tips for handling and interpreting digital evidence as part of the digital forensic process.

Browning Marean, Senior Counsel with DLA Piper started Day 2 of the Conference and set an extremely high bar for his fellow speakers by entertaining the audience in relation to the rising need for digital forensics and e-discovery in today's world.

His Honour Judge Simon Brown QC, Designated Mercantile Judge with the Birmingham Civil Justice Centre in the UK followed with a timely overview of recent e-disclosure developments in England and Wales.

Anthony Poon and Diana Purdy-Tsang with Baker & McKenzie outlined the implications of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance when dealing with e-discovery.

Rongsheng Xu, Chairman with the China Computer Forensics Research Center spoke on the current status of digital forensics and e-discovery in the People's Republic of China.

Scott Nonaka, Partner with O'Melveny & Myers in Japan illustrated the benefits of legal practitioners proactively adopting digital evidence to assist in commercial litigation.

A panel session at the end of each day brought the individual sessions together with collective thoughts from select experts.

The Essential Workshop

In addition to serving as Chairperson, I presented "The Essential Workshop – Digital Forensics and E-Discovery".

The presentation in Portable Document Format (PDF).