Scott A. Milner

Scott participates in 26(f) conferences, negotiates ESI agreements and stipulations addressing the scope of preservation of information, and details data that is not reasonably accessible. He also advises on collection methodology, search and retrieval methodology, FRE 502(d) orders, and production specifications.

Clients frequently engage Scott to negotiate discovery protocols with several US government agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Labor, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as numerous state US Attorneys’ offices. He serves as eDiscovery liaison in jurisdictions across the United States, negotiates technology-assisted review protocols, and handles motions related to discovery disputes.

Clients’ in-house legal counsel, technology teams, and records-management departments collaborate with Scott to develop and implement best practices for eDiscovery. He develops internal and external discovery guidelines addressing each phase of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) for clients, including a global technology company and a global logistics and shipping company.

In addition, Scott counsels clients in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and IG, including drafting and revising AI policies; counseling on AI use cases in the areas of eDiscovery, cyber, internal investigations, privacy, and IG; developing best practices for creation of quality control, quality assurance, and validation protocols when using AI; and supporting clients that are developing and rolling out generative AI to support legal and impact on maintaining privilege and potential waiver.

Sharing more than a decade of experience in eDiscovery, Scott is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education classes (CLE), seminars, and webcasts. He addresses such issues as case law updates, best practices, and practice pointers for key phases of the EDRM. He also covers crucial trends in eDiscovery, including ethics of AI, bring your own device (BYOD), social media, technology-assisted review, cloud computing, ABA ethics rule changes, and the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Scott often writes articles covering these topics as well.

• Served as the eDiscovery liaison for a large fast food client negotiating ESI Protocols across a portfolio of wage & hour class actions in both federal and state court across the country. 
• Worked with a leading nursing and long-term care provider on their IG initiatives including text messages and revising their email retention policy.
• Provided guidance to a leading nursing and long-term care provider during an acquisition counseling the client on data migration and preservation considerations and requirements.  To provide this counseling, it required interviewing the acquired company’s key stakeholders within a one-week period to understand the current IT infrastructure, the scope of active legal holds and prior preservation and collection practices.
• Drafted and revised BYOD policies for several clients including those in the retail and electronics industries.
• Serve as National Discovery Counsel of a global pharmaceutical company. In that role, Scott counsels the client on all aspects of data management and discovery compliance, including preservation, discovery practice, and court-mandated meet and confers. Our engagement affords the opportunity to work collaboratively with our client as well as merits counsel from a variety of law firms.  In addition, eData handles all collection, processing, review, analysis, and production of our client’s data in the company’s litigations, including matters for which other law firms are engaged as merits counsel.
• Served as the eDiscovery lead for a large forest products company in a large antitrust litigation. During this litigation, Scott led the discovery efforts including developing a discovery plan to handle data collection in Canada and a review of over 1 million documents.
• Served as the eDiscovery lead for an international electronics company in response to a CPSC inquiry. This representation included preparing a discovery plan, interviewing and performing targeted collections of over 50 records custodians and negotiating eDiscovery issues with the CPSC. 
• Served as the eDiscovery lead for an international forest products company in an ERISA class action. During this representation, Scott drafted a discovery plan and served as the assigned eDiscovery liaison under the Western District of Washington’s local rules negotiating the ESI Protocol addressing all discovery-related issues including search protocols, format for production and FRE 502(d) orders.
• On behalf of a large healthcare company, Scott negotiated an ESI Protocol with the DOJ specifically focused on using advanced analytics and technology-assisted review to reduce costs. The impact of this negotiation resulted in a reduction of the review population by over 70%.

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.