Griffith
HUNTINGTON – The Appalachian Institute of Digital Evidence recently held electronic discovery training for substitute district judges in Virginia.
Kelly B. Griffith, an attorney at Spilman Thomas & Battle's Charleston office, said AIDE was asked to do the electronic discovery training for the Virginia substitute district judges, which was done over five consecutive weeks in five different cities in Virginia: Richmond, Roanoke, Virginia Beach, Fairfax and Staunton.
"The response was pretty good and it was a great experience," Griffith said. "The substitute district judges are mostly full-time practicing lawyers who fill in as needed as substitute judges. They have training annually and the state Supreme Court contacted AIDE to have us give them electronic discovery training."
Griffith said she and three other attorneys did the training: King Tower from Spilman's Roanoke office, Scott Adams from Spilman's Winston-Salem office and Jill McIntyre from Jackson Kelly's Charleston office.
"We coordinated the presentations, answered questions, and gave them handouts," Griffith said. "We had a good response from the judges in attendance."
Griffith said the substitute judges have not seen much electronic discovery matters, but have seen social media issues, like Facebook, being heavily used.
"Our job was to teach them to known what is discoverable and how to admit it into evidence," Griffith said. "We discussed what they should expect in electronically stored information."
Griffith said Virginia's state court rules were recently amended to include discovery of electronically stored information, which makes them similar to the federal court rules, which were amended in 2006. West Virginia's state court rules have not yet been amended to include discovery of electronically stored information.
"We would like to do similar training in West Virginia," Griffith said. "AIDE wants to be able to educate the masses on electronic discovery."
Griffith said after the training with the substitute district judges, they also did a training session for Virginia hearing officers.
"We were able to tailor our presentation to a particular group," Griffith said. "We would like to be able to do this for people in West Virginia, too."
For more information on electronic discovery, contact Griffith at 304-340-3833, or e-mail her at kgriffith@spilmanlaw.com. For more information on AIDE, visit aide.marshall.edu.
