Executive Team
Patrick Oot
Patrick Oot is an experienced corporate attorney and co-founder of The Electronic Discovery Institute. Also known for his former role as Director of Electronic Discovery and Senior Counsel at Verizon in Washington, DC, Mr. Oot has extensive experience in discovery practices involving commercial litigation, regulatory filings, and antitrust matters. Mr. Oot was charged with advising Verizon’s business units on electronic discovery while developing new technologies that increased cost-efficiency. In 2006, Mr. Oot was nominated for the Verizon Excellence Award after playing a key role in the successful completion of Verizon’s response to the Department of Justice’s Second Request for Documents in its acquisition of MCI. As a result of his work, Inside Counsel magazine named Verizon’s e-discovery team as one of the ten most innovative legal groups of 2007, the group’s second year winning the title. In 2007, Mr. Oot appeared with United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at Georgetown University Law Center’s Summit on Electronic Discovery. Mr. Oot has testified before the United States Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence where he presented his position on Proposed Rule of Evidence 502. The Committee included in its draft to the Judicial Conference language incorporating Mr. Oot’s suggestions.
Mr. Oot is a member of the advisory board for, ALM’s LegalTech, The Georgetown University Law Center’s Advanced Ediscovery Institute, andThe Council on Litigation Management. Oot actively participates in The Sedona Conference’s working groups; focusing on best practices in search and retrieval and the effective use of Federal Rule of Evidence 502. He is a member of the International Legal Technology Association, and has co-chaired Martindale-Hubble’s Counsel to Counsel electronic discovery roundtables. Mr. Oot lectures regularly at educational events and legal conferences internationally, has appeared on National Public Radio’s Morning Editionand was interviewed for the August 2008 edition of The Economist.
He received both his B.A. and J.D. from Syracuse University and his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Oot is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts and is also registered corporate counsel in Virginia.
Anne Kershaw, Esq.
Anne Kershaw is an experienced litigator, co-founder of the Electronic Discovery Institute and the founder of A. Kershaw, P.C. // Attorneys & Consultants, a nationally recognized data, litigation, and business records management consulting firm, providing independent analysis and innovative recommendations for the management of legacy and active data, including backup tapes, file shares, email and archives. Anne Kershaw is an expert on reducing costs associated with accumulated legacy data and electronic discovery. Ms. Kershaw has been involved with high tech litigation management since 1993, taking management roles on national coordinating and trial counsel teams defending volume, multi-state, product liability claims. A. Kershaw PC addresses data challeneges in complex litigations, including antitrust, products liability and financial services cases, and the firm excels in addressing difficult corporate litigation management issues. A.Kershaw's solutions leverage technology and communications to substantially cut costs, enhance partnerships with outside counsel, and strengthen litigation support. The firm’s practice includes the design and implementation of litigation response plans, protocols for the preservation and collection of data for discovery, and the execution of data management and disposition recommendations. The firm also vets data search and review technologies, educates outside counsel on electronic discovery issues, manages vendor selection, and conducts cost benchmarking surveys for legislative and judicial consideration. Ms. Kershaw also maintains ongoing involvement in federal and state civil rules reform to address electronic discovery issues and litigation fairness issues, providing litigation survey data and testimony before the Federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee.
n addition, Ms. Kershaw is a Faculty Member of Columbia University's Executive Master of Science in Information and Knowledge Strategy, teaches at the Georgetown University E-Discovery Academy and is an Advisory Board Member of the Georgetown University Law Center's Advanced E-Discovery Institute. She is a frequent lecturer and in March 2007, she joined Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Harvard Law Professor Arthur Miller at Georgetown’s Thought Leadership Summit. In 2010 and 2011 she conducted workshops on electronic discovery at the Federal Judicial Center’s conferences for U.S. Magistrate Judges. She is also the author of numerous published articles, all posted on www.AKershaw.com, and is a member of the Sedona Conference® Working Group on Best Practices for Electronic Document Retention and Production (www.thesedonaconference.org), the Counsel on Litigation Management (www.litmgmt.com), the International Legal Technology Association (www.iltanet.org), the Association of Records Management (www.arma.org), and the National Association of Women Lawyers (www.nawl.org). Ms. Kershaw also co-chairs the ABA’s E-Discovery and Litigation Technology Committee for the Corporate Counsel Litigation Section Committee (www.abanet.org/litigation/committees/corporate/home.html).
Ms. Kershaw is a 1987 graduate, cum laude, of New York Law School (evening division) and a 1982 graduate of Bard College. She is admitted to practice in the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, United States Court of Appeals for the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits, United States Supreme Court, and all New York State Courts.
Barbara Hanahan
Barbara Hanahan is the Director of Programs and Communication for The Electronic Discovery Institute. As such, she is responsible for overseeing and coordinating our events and programs, press releases, and communication to our members.
Barb is in her ninth term as President of the Chicago Association of Litigation Support Managers (CALSM), a 22-year old organization dedicated to furthering education in ediscovery and litigation support. Ms. Hanahan’s strong commitment to giving back to the legal community is evidenced by the path CALSM has taken under her leadership, such as funding scholarships for the legal technology class in a local university’s ABA-approved legal assistant program. Recognizing the need for local advanced ediscovery education, Ms. Hanahan led CALSM in launching CALSM-posium, an annual symposium on current trends in ediscovery.
Ms. Hanahan has a diverse background, starting as a paralegal and continuing her career on a progressive track from paralegal manager to seasoned litigation support professional. As a litigation support project manager at Winston & Strawn LLP, an AmLaw 100 law firm, Ms. Hanahan was instrumental in developing best practices for its newly formed litigation support department in 2001. Ms. Hanahan transitioned to a sales engineer position with a tier one ediscovery service provider in 2007 where she brought the same insights to its clients that she had brought to her internal clients at Winston & Strawn.
In addition to CALSM, Ms. Hanahan is known for her participation and leadership roles in other industry professional groups, having been a member of the Sedona Conference and Co-Chair of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Review Committee. She is also a member of the Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program Technology Committee.
Ms. Hanahan received her BS from the University of Phoenix in Business Administration and Information Systems and has a paralegal certificate through an ABA-approved program.
Herbert L. Roitblat, Ph.D
Herb L. Roitblat is a co-founder and principal at OrcaTec LLC. Before starting Orcatec, Herb was Executive Vice President, Chief Scientist, and co-founder of DolphinSearch. He is the primary inventor of the core DolphinSearch technology (patent No. 6,189,002). His duties at DolphinSearch included new product development, business development, and marketing as well as internal and external consulting on the processes of eDiscovery and related information management and data mining issues. Herb led the design of the DolphinSearch review tools, DIAD, and ComplianSeek, and was part of the team that brought concept searching and native file review to the eDiscovery industry. He was also responsible for DolphinSearch’s Federal Market efforts.
Herb is a recognized expert in cognitive science, information management, data mining, statistics, and eDiscovery processes. He is the author of numerous papers on dolphin biosonar and neural network models of the dolphin sensory system. More recently he has been writing about data mining and how technology can ease the burden of eDiscovery. Herb was an award-winning Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii from 1985 until 2002. He taught courses in cognitive science and research methods. He has a B.A. degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California-Berkeley. He served as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Columbia University until he joined the faculty at the University of Hawaii. Herb is a Past President of the Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology of the American Psychological Association and Past President of the International Society for Adaptive Behavior. In 2002, he received the Clifford T. Morgan award for distinguished contributions to behavioral neuroscience and comparative psychology. Herb is a member of the Sedona Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production.
Danielle Nicholson
Danielle Nicholson is a Project Assistant at the Electronic Discovery Institute. Her recent experience included an accounting position at the American Society for Cell Biology in Bethesda, MD. In addition to her role as an assistant to the Director of Finance, Ms. Nicholson worked with the Coalition for Life Sciences, facilitating meetings with research scientists on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Ms. Nicholson received her BS from the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC in Business Administration and Marketing.
