Episode 23: Teaching Old (and Young) Lawyers New Tricks

Join the TAR Talk team on the EDRM porch as we say hello to Bill Hamilton, a former trial lawyer, biglaw partner and professor at the University of Florida Levin School of Law. Our topic for this session is Teaching TAR and we ask the age-old question: Can we teach old and new dogs a few new tricks.  Join us as we talk about the pernicious effect of the billable hour, the fragile egos of trial lawyers.

Tom Gricks starts us off by asking why TAR, with its demonstrated gains in efficiency and time savings, hasn’t taken off the way he expected back when he did his first TAR case. Bill provides a dual perspective as a biglaw trial lawyer and teacher noting that: 

“Law is driven by tremendous time pressures. All cases are different. Attorneys learn what they think they know, which gives law practice a conservative bias. What attorney has the time to really sit down and learn TAR? Not to mention the billable hour requirements. In an academic environment, I have an audience with not only the time but the requirement to learn.”

We go on from there to solve the problems of the world. And Tredennick points out his view that the top three things holding back TAR adoption are 1) the billable hour; 2) the billable hour; and 3) the billable hour. 

Bill was the Electronic Discovery Partner with Quarles & Brady in Tampa and  also a partner with Holland & Knight in the Miami and Tampa offices. After retiring he has been teaching electronic discovery at the University of Florida for the past decade and is the co-author of several key publications in the field. He is also a neutral arbitrator and mediator for the World Intellectual Property Organization and the author of numerous domain name dispute decisions. Professor Hamilton has been recognized in Chambers USA, Florida Legal Elite, Best Lawyers in America, and Florida Super Lawyers.