The In-House Counsel Experience - Panel Discussion - Chapter 12 - Electronic Disclosure in International Arbitration
About the Moderator:
TOM SIKORA is Senior Counsel at El Paso Corporation with responsibility for international, commercial and investment arbitration. He also directs El Paso's E-Discovery practice. In addition, he Co-Heads El Paso’s Enterprise Content Management Project tasked with selecting and implementing a corporate document management system.
About the Panelists:
DAVID J. HOWELL is Co-Chair of the Global International Arbitration practice of Fulbright & Jaworski and acts as counsel and advocate in complex international arbitrations of commercial, investment and construction disputes. He has practiced in London, Dubai and Singapore and is a Fellow of the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong Institutes of Arbitrators.
LAURA M. KIBBE is a Consultant with Thomson and was until recently Senior Corporate Counsel at Pfizer Inc. and Managing Director of Pfizer's Discovery Response Team, with responsibility for the strategy and resources to meet discovery issues, and a core team member on Pfizer's records retention initiative.
LIANE KOMAGOME is Discovery Compliance Counsel in the Houston Texas office of Hewlett-Packard Company, and is active in the field of electronic discovery.
JAMES M. WRIGHT of PFI Consulting was formerly responsible for E-Discovery protocols at Halliburton and has 20 years experience in the engineering and construction industry. He acts as a Special Master in E-Discovery disputes.
STEVE PATE is a Partner in the Houston office of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP and Chair of the firm's Insurance Litigation Practice Group. He is also Chair of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel e-discovery panel.
Originally from Electronic Disclosure in International Arbitration
MR. HOWELL: The next session concerns the “coal face”, the reality for in-house counsel. We have some very prominent in-house counsel that are experts on e-discovery. The session is going to be chaired by Tom Sikora, Senior Counsel at El Paso Corporation. He is responsible for El Paso’s e-discovery practice. He is also a founder member with Jim Wright and others, and is current Vice-chair, of the Corporate E-Discovery Forum, which now has over 200 corporate members. He was formerly a lawyer with Vinson & Elkins in Houston.
MR. SIKORA: The only other thing I would say is that I was international arbitration counsel specializing in energy arbitration for the last thirteen years. So it is somewhat ironic that I was the person responsible for electronic discovery because, as an arbitration counsel, I never really cared about the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and I never really knew anything related to evidence.
I always say that the world of energy arbitration is a small world. But the world of in-house discovery experts is a truly small world. I am delighted to present some of my very close friends and colleagues, people I have known and worked with for many years that David Howell has collected for this panel.
First, let me introduce my friend Laura Kibbe. Laura has an electronic discovery docket of at least 40,000 cases at any time and her practice is truly 24/7. I cannot think of someone who has more experience in electronic discovery. Laura is a board member of Pfizer’s Discovery Response Team and a member of the Sedona Conference.
Next to Laura is James Wright. Imagine being the head of e-discovery at a global company with 120,000 employees worldwide and 50 Congressional committees trying to investigate and draw blood from you at any time. Jim Wright was the head of electronic discovery at Halliburton in Houston from 2001 until 2007. He has since gone on to FDI Consulting which specializes in consulting in e-discovery management and electronic discovery preparedness. He is also one of the co-founders of the Corporate E-Discovery Forum and a current board member, as well as a member of the Sedona Conference.