eDiscovery Leaders Live: Bill Hamilton of University of Florida - G. Levin College of Law

Intro

‍Bill Hamilton, Senior Legal Skills Professor at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, joins George Socha, Senior Vice President of Brand Awareness at Reveal, for ACEDS #eDiscoveryLeadersLive.

A 30-year veteran of Big Law litigation, Bill taught eDiscovery at UF Law as an adjunct for 10 years and now is a full-time professor at the law school where he teaches eDiscovery, complex litigation, and related topics. Bill founded the UF Law E-Discovery Project, which includes the UF Law E-Discovery Conference, now in its tenth year and scheduled for February 8 and 8 in Gainesville, Florida, and virtually.

Key Highlights

• [1:16] Introducing Bill Hamilton.
• [1:49] Introducing the UF Law E-Discovery Conference.
• [2:52] Dates and registration information – and why UF Law is putting on the conference for free to remote attendees and for $199 to in-person attendees.
• [5:00] What attendees can expect from the conference.
• [5:17] The history and purpose of the conference.
• [7:13] The topics to be covered at the conference.
• [10:55] The conference’s faculty – and a thank-you to them.
• [11:50] CLE credits.
• [13:37] How the conference has changed over its ten years.
• [14:45] A big change this year: a new platform, Whova, to enhance the experience for online attendees.
• [16:21] What putting together each year’s conference entails.
• [17:25] Selecting speakers and putting together panels.
• [19:12] Comparing with other conferences.
• [20:32] Moments that stand out, from nine years of conferences.
• [21:58] Making abstract concepts concrete.
• [23:14] And the challenge of how to do that.
• [23:50] Reaching Bill with questions and suggestions about the conference – all part of making the conference better.
• [25:23] It’s a conference for law students and faculty members too, in person and online.
• [27:42] How the conference started.
  
  

Key Quotes

• The idea is that we want to provide in every one of our sessions at least three takeaways from that 50 minutes that can be used by the attendees right away in their practice…. In the sessions themselves, what we are doing is we’re focused on providing a skillset and tools that the attendees can use right away.”
• “The mission of the conference…is to improve the quality of the litigation process.”
• “A panel is not simply three, four, or five individuals each one talking. It’s a collaborative activity. And that’s really the great thing about our conference. All the presenters stay for the entire conference. They’re in the audience for every panel. Every panel is talking together and talking with the audience and that’s a dynamic environment.”
• “I think we send a lot more time getting ready…. It’s almost planning out a course… Our panels require some planning and some work and that’s important and they spend a lot of time doing that and we work with them to get it right so their presentation makes sense, hits the key topics, and is understandable to the audience.”
• “What stands out always is the beginning of every conference. Because that’s kind of the kickoff. Everybody shows up. The auditorium is full. We’re looking at people signing on to Zoom – it’s 1,000 are on, 2,000 are on, 3,000 are on. It’s really thrilling to have that moment arrive where all our work is coming to fruition and there’s the audience anticipating it and ready to participate and engage with us.”
  
  

Connect with Bill

• Bill Hamilton on LinkedIn