The Effects of the December 2015 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure from Three Perspectives (Judges, Defense & Plaintiff)

Paul D. Weiner is a shareholder and serves as the firm’s National eDiscovery Counsel.

Littler’s long-held dedication to innovation is exemplified in eDiscovery as the firm was one of the first in the United States to hire attorneys at the shareholder level dedicated exclusively to eDiscovery worldwide. Paul oversees a team comprising eDiscovery lawyers, litigation support project managers, developers, data analysts, and database administrators who provide targeted advice, strategy and hands-on litigation assistance to Littler case teams and clients. He also built and manages the Littler National Data Center, which handles electronic evidence processing and hosting activities, using best-of-breed technologies and quality assurance workflows.

Paul marries technology skills, litigation experience, and deep subject matter knowledge to provide focused guidance on eDiscovery matters. His involvement ranges from providing case and client-specific advice about meeting preservation obligations, to addressing initial "meet and confer" obligations, to handling court appearances that address eDiscovery matters, to taking and defending depositions of IT personnel and experts, to developing strategies for efficient and effective data harvesting, protection, review and production, to implementing cost-shifting and reduction strategies, with a particular emphasis on high-exposure Rule 23 class and FLSA ? 216(b) collective actions.

Paul has lectured and published extensively on eDiscovery, and his work has served to educate lawyers, judges and business people about the field. His work was cited in the landmark opinion of Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, credited for facilitating the dramatic growth of the eDiscovery industry and altering how companies store electronic information.

Paul is also well known for bringing cutting-edge solutions to both the technical and legal aspects of eDiscovery. One key trend, which he has helped lead through litigating cases and his scholarship, pertains to the growing availability of personal information through social media, mobile devices and other avenues – a development that has leveled the playing field between companies and individuals in what were previously viewed as “asymmetrical” discovery matters. No longer is most or all pertinent information in a case possessed by large employers, and Paul has worked to teach “eDiscovery is a two-way street,” including in a chapter he authored addressing those issues in the Federal Judges’ Guide to Discovery, published by the non-profit Electronic Discovery Institute.

Paul also co-chairs the Advisory Board for the Georgetown Law Advanced eDiscovery Institute?. Georgetown’s annual conference is universally recognized as the premier eDiscovery event of the year, and brings together the best thought leaders in eDiscovery, including members of the federal and state judiciary, in-house representatives from Fortune 500 corporations, lawyers from various U.S. governmental agencies, high-profile plaintiffs’ counsel, partners from various Am Law 100 firms, law professors, and legal technologists.

President George W. Bush appointed Judge Rodriguez to the bench as a United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas in 2003. He is a former Texas Supreme Court Justice and was also a partner in the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski, L.L.P.

Judge Rodriguez is a frequent speaker on continuing legal education seminars and has authored numerous articles regarding employment law, discovery, and arbitration issues. He serves as an adjunct professor of law at the St. Mary’s University School of Law. He was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation. He was awarded the Rosewood Gavel Award for outstanding judicial service from the St. Mary’s University School of Law in 2011.

Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte was appointed in 1998. She has presided over numerous civil cases through trial or other disposition, including patent, trademark, copyright, employment, civil rights and environmental cases. She also has conducted over 1000 settlement conferences, handled criminal matters, and resolved discovery disputes.

A 1982 graduate of Yale Law School and a Marshall Scholar, she clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel in the Northern District of California. She was a partner at the boutique litigation firm of Turner & Brorby, and an Administrative Law Judge for the California Department of Insurance. In 1996, she began serving as Chief of Special Litigation for the San Francisco City Attorney=s Office, and was named a Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer. She has authored articles on patent litigation and settlement in the Northern California ABTL [Association of Business Trial Lawyers] Report, and has written on e-discovery. Judge Laporte serves on the Board of Governors for the Northern California Chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and the Executive Committee of the Litigation Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco. She is also a judicial observer for the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production.

Judge Laporte has recently been appointed the Alternative Dispute Resolution Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California, is a past chair of the Magistrate Judge Executive Board of the Ninth Circuit, and was a member of the Jury Trial Improvement Committee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2002 to 2009. She regularly speaks at legal conferences and judicial education programs on patent litigation, jury trials, e-discovery, employment law, settlement, and other topics.

The Honorable Andrew J. Peck served for 23 years as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York, including a term as Chief Magistrate Judge from 2004 to 2005. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Peck was in private practice for 17 years, focusing on commercial and entertainment litigation, including copyright and trademark matters, with extensive trial experience.

At DLA Piper, Judge Peck advises on innovative and efficient solutions to the challenges of information management, both within and outside the litigation context. He frequently speaks at conferences concerning eDiscovery issues. Since joining DLA Piper, Judge Peck has been retained to serve as special discovery counsel to clients and law firms, and to submit expert reports in state court cases. Judge Peck is ranked by Chambers as "Recognized Practitioner" for "Litigation: E-Discovery in USA- Nationwide."

Judge Peck also is available to serve as an arbitrator, mediator and Special Master. In addition to serving directly through DLA Piper, Judge Peck is on the arbitration and mediation rosters of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Federal Arbitration, Inc., and National Arbitration and Mediation (NAM).

Judge Peck is recognized internationally for bringing electronic discovery competency to the attention of both the judiciary and bar. Indeed, he is widely described as the first judge to tackle the subject of e-discovery head on, most notably in the influential 1995 decision Anti-Monopoly v. Hasbro, in which Judge Peck found that "it is black letter law that computerized data is discoverable if relevant." Also among his legacy rulings is the 2012 employment class action Monique Da Silva Moore, et. al. v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, the first judicial decision approving the use of technology-assisted review. By 2015, Judge Peck declared in Rio Tinto v. Valle that it was black-letter law that if the responding party wished to use TAR, courts would allow it. In March 2018, the New York Law Journal called Judge Peck "one of e-discovery's most influential figures."

Among the honors he has received, American Lawyer named him to its list of the Top 50 Innovators of the Last 50 Years as its Judicial E-Discovery Innovator.

Ariana J. Tadler is a member of the preeminent plaintiff law firm, Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP. The firm's practice focuses on prosecution of class and complex actions in many fields of commercial litigation, emphasizing securities, corporate fiduciary, consumer, insurance, healthcare, antitrust, mass tort, human rights, and related areas of litigation. Ms. Tadler is a member of the firm's Management Committee and Hiring Committee and one of seven partners chosen to mentor the firm's associates.

Ms. Tadler graduated from Hamilton College in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1992, she received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, where she was the Articles and Commentary Editor of the Fordham Urban Law Journal, a member of the Moot Court Board and the 1990 recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Criminal Law. She is the co-author of "Damages in Federal Securities Litigation," Securities Litigation 1991: Strategies and Current Developments, Practicing Law Institute, 1991.

Ms. Tadler is admitted to the Bars of the States of New York and New Jersey, as well as the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the District of New Jersey and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In addition, she is a member of the Federal Bar Council, the American Bar Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the New York State Bar Association and the New York County Lawyers Association. Ms. Tadler is also involved in various charity and community organizations. She is currently a board member and Co-Chair of Development for MFY Legal Services.