PROGRAM SESSIONS

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already embedded in modern discovery workflows. The more consequential shift now is how legal judgment is exercised and defended when AI accelerates insight and scales decision-making. As AI moves judgment earlier in matters and makes legal reasoning more visible, long-standing assumptions about oversight, ownership and accountability are tested. This panel of experts will examine how corporate legal teams' expectations of their outside providers are evolving as AI becomes a baseline component of discovery practice. The discussion will focus on where human judgment can intervene, who owns AI-assisted decisions and how those decisions are operationalized consistently across matters and partners. Rather than debating adoption, this discussion will address delivery of defensible legal judgment at enterprise scale and the need to move beyond experimentation to meet increasing corporate expectations.

What if a case wasn’t just a collection of documents, but a dynamic system that continuously learns, adapts and informs strategy? This session introduces the concept of a matter’s “digital twin,” an evolving representation built from pleadings, discovery inputs and legal theories that can surface insights, identify gaps and connect evidence in real time. Panelists will explore whether this shift from static review to living intelligence represents the next frontier in litigation.

Corporate legal teams seek clarity and alignment. This discussion will offer candid insights into what in-house counsel teams value most from partners: efficiency, transparency and trust. This session will explore practical examples of successful partnerships and explain how to avoid common pitfalls, including communication breakdowns and misaligned expectations. Panelists will highlight emerging priorities such as cost predictability, technology adoption and risk management strategies. Learn how to deliver measurable value, strengthen trust and position your services as an indispensable part of the client’s journey.

Corporate legal departments continue to seek the optimal balance between internal and external resources in their discovery programs. This panel will discuss factors that drive insourcing and outsourcing decisions, and how recent evolutions in discovery technology have altered legal departments’ evaluation of those factors. How does the swinging pendulum impact planning for employment and staffing at corporate legal departments, law firms and service providers? Join this session to find out!

GenAI is already interwoven into eDiscovery productions, processing tens of millions of documents and generating classifications, privilege logs, case chronologies and strategic summaries. Leading practitioners have begun to use GenAI to interpret, summarize and reason across the full discovery lifecycle. This panel will discuss what defensible metrics and validation look like for production workflows, and how practitioners are using GenAI to complete projects that were unachievable without a native GenAI approach. Panelists will focus on real-world case studies and strategies that may be applied across all types of investigations and litigation.

Modern discovery increasingly depends on interconnected teams, cloud platforms, outside providers and complex data environments, creating new challenges around privilege, confidentiality, supervision and accountability. This panel will examine the ethical obligations governing corporate legal departments, law firms and service providers in technology-driven litigation, including oversight of temporary lawyers and non-lawyers, conflicts management, data security and defensible discovery workflows. Panelists will also discuss recent case law and where courts are drawing the line on professional responsibility in modern discovery practice.

Legal matters are rarely simple, but adding an international element can be a force multiplier on complexity. This panel will consider the unique, sometimes-overlooked difficulties that arise when legal issues, whether investigations, disputes, eDiscovery matters or otherwise, span the globe. Expect to learn about variations in how discovery is conducted (or whether it is even allowed), challenges related to data collection and storage, specific cultural and socioeconomic considerations, language barriers, limitations imposed by local customs and ever-present concerns about cost containment. Panelists will examine all of this through a lens of how to manage and mitigate these challenges as a US-based practitioner working from afar.

How do litigants define reasonable preservation scopes for generative AI data while considering proportionality, burden and evolving case law? As generative AI becomes ubiquitous across enterprise workflows, traditional preservation frameworks are tested by new data types that are dynamic, ephemeral and often poorly understood. This session addresses how litigators and clients are navigating preservation obligations for AI related data, including prompts, outputs and system logs, and strategies used to make defensible and proportional decisions in an evolving technological landscape.

Even in paradise, unexpected waves can take you off course. This session takes an honest look at real-life missteps and strategies for recovery, accountability and risk management. Learn how to transform setbacks into solid ground and strengthen your playbook and client partnership for future success. Panelists will share lessons learned from real-world missteps and outline tools for measuring performance and rebuilding trust. Walk away with a practical approach to turning challenges into opportunities.

Discovery has changed. Technology has changed. The questions facing courts have changed. In this remixed edition of EDI’s signature judicial panel, leading jurists will revisit the evolving relationship between litigation, technology and professional responsibility in an era defined by AI, sprawling data environments and rapidly shifting expectations around discovery practice. Blending candid judicial perspectives with forward-looking discussion, this session will explore how courts are thinking about proportionality, transparency, privilege, cooperation and the increasingly human challenge of managing technology-driven litigation. Part retrospective, part reality check and part crystal ball, this conversation brings the judiciary back to center stage for a timely discussion on where discovery goes next.

In the unpredictable waters of complex litigation, a single poorly managed discovery dispute can crash onto the rocks of adverse caselaw, creating precedents that haunt entire industries for years, just as one rogue wave can redefine a Hawaiian surf break. This panel will dissect real-world examples of cases where aggressive over-collection, sloppy privilege assertions or untimely productions led to sanctions, waived protections or expansive rulings on emerging issues such as AI outputs and modern data sources. Attendees will hear battle-tested tactics for early risk assessment, proportional scoping and defensible decision-making – helping to ensure their cases avoid striking back as cautionary tales cited in courtrooms nationwide.

In the spirit of ‘ohana, where even rivals paddle together to catch the perfect break, this panel dives into the evolving world of virtual providers, where competing law firms and service providers form collaborative alliances on shared corporate client panels to deliver seamless, efficient workflows for high-volume litigation and investigations. Panelists will unpack proven strategies for initially securing a spot on these elite panels through demonstrated value, transparent pricing, tech interoperability, and cultural fit. Learn how these collabs maintain long-term momentum via consistent performance metrics, proactive innovation sharing and joint governance to avoid wipeouts from misaligned expectations. Expect to walk away with a playbook for building and sustaining these win-win partnerships that reduce client friction, control costs and keep everyone riding high.

What really happens behind the scenes when legal departments evaluate an eDiscovery RFP? Join our panel of experts to develop and respond to an eDiscovery RFP live alongside candid commentary and feedback from in-house counsel. As proposals evolve in real time, panelists react to pricing models, workflow decisions, technology claims, staffing approaches and common sales pitfalls. Expect an unfiltered look at what resonates with buyers and what immediately raises concern. Part strategy session, part live critique, this discussion will pull back the curtain on the RFP process and provide practical insight into how organizations assess value, trust and long-term partnership potential.

AI tools are increasingly creating records of communications like transcripts, summaries and other meeting artifacts. Concurrently, lawyers use GenAI in investigation, drafting and even litigation simulation exercises in ways that can raise work product questions. This panel will focus on practical guardrails: where privilege and work product arguments are strongest, where the risk of waiver increases and what teams can do now to reduce exposure as AI becomes part of everyday legal workflows.

Corporate litigation leaders entered 2026 facing a rapidly shifting legal landscape shaped by AI acceleration, post-Chevron regulatory challenges and rising cybersecurity and privacy risks. As generative AI transforms discovery and legal workflows, organizations must also navigate growing concerns around hallucinations, defensibility, data governance and evolving state-by-state regulation. This panel brings together in-house leaders to discuss the trends, risks and strategic decisions expected to define corporate litigation in the year ahead, along with how organizations prepare for what comes next.

Launching a new program inside a complex organization often has less to do with technology or budgets than with influence, alignment and institutional momentum. From securing executive buy-in to navigating skepticism, building a successful initiative requires leaders to persuade across departments, communicate value clearly and create advocates at every level of the process. This session will explore the realities of building programs from the ground up, including lessons learned around internal politics, change management, cross-functional collaboration and sustaining momentum long after launch. Panelists will share candid stories about what helped move initiatives forward, what created resistance and how successful leaders turn ideas into lasting operational change.

Just as Hawaii's shifting sands can hide treasures or swallow footprints, the explosion of generative AI creates dynamic, ephemeral ESI that demands updated legal hold strategies to avoid risk of spoliation in complex, high-stakes litigation. This panel explores the growing preservation challenges created by AI-generated content, cloud platforms and modern collaboration tools in multi-jurisdictional matters. Panelists will discuss practical strategies for suspending autodeletion, identifying discoverable data without over-preserving information and building defensible workflows that align with evolving case law on proportionality, privilege and validation. Attendees will leave with practical guidance for strengthening legal holds, custodian processes and coordination with IT.

As AI rapidly transforms the legal profession, questions once considered theoretical are becoming increasingly practical: can AI systems perform functions traditionally reserved for judges? This panel will examine the legal, ethical and constitutional implications of AI-assisted adjudication, including where AI may appropriately support judicial decision-making and where human judgment, discretion and legitimacy remain essential. Panelists will explore how courts may integrate AI in the years ahead, the guardrails required to preserve fairness and independence and what the future of judicial decision-making may look like in an increasingly automated legal system.

What happens when trial strategy meets predictive intelligence? As AI-powered analytics tools move deeper into the courtroom, litigants are beginning to explore everything from algorithmic jury profiling to “minority reports” designed to forecast how jurors may think, deliberate and decide before a verdict is ever reached. This session will examine the growing role of AI in jury analysis and trial preparation, including promises, pitfalls and ethical questions surrounding predictive litigation strategy. Panelists will explore whether these technologies can meaningfully enhance advocacy and decision-making, or whether they risk introducing new forms of bias, opacity and overconfidence into the justice system.