Hausfeld and The Sedona Conference announce the first recipient of the William P. Butterfield Award for Excellence in eDiscovery Writing

Hausfeld and The Sedona Conference are pleased to announce that William LaRosa, a J.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, is the first recipient of the William P. Butterfield Award for Excellence in eDiscovery Writing for his paper, titled Bailment Theory as the Baseline Data Security Standard of Care Owed to an Opponent’s Data in E-Discovery. Mr. LaRosa will receive a $10,000 cash prize from Hausfeld to be presented at the mid-year meeting of The Sedona Conference’s Working Group 1 on Electronic Document Retention and Production on May 2-3, 2019, in Charlotte, NC.  

“The expert panel of judges found Mr. LaRosa’s paper was well written and researched, presented a fresh topic in the field of e-discovery, and was extremely timely in an era of increasing concern about data security,” said Ken Withers, Deputy Executive Director of The Sedona Conference. 

The William P. Butterfield Award for Excellence in eDiscovery Writing, launched last year, is presented annually to recognize and incentivize innovative legal thinking, independent research, and technical solutions that advance the field of eDiscovery and promote cooperation, collaboration and efficiency in eDiscovery.  The eponymous award, jointly sponsored by Hausfeld and The Sedona Conference, honors the memory of the late William P. Butterfield, a founding member of Hausfeld, former chair of The Steering Committee of The Sedona Conference’s Working Group 1, and an eDiscovery thought leader.

“Bill taught eDiscovery for many years and loved mentoring new attorneys,” said Michael Hausfeld. “He would be very pleased to know that a law student was a recipient of the inaugural award.”  

The annual competition is open to scholars, legal practitioners and law students, technologists and others working in the field of eDiscovery and accepts papers involving innovative technical or legal solutions or proposals, original quantitative or qualitative research relating to e-discovery, or other similar topics that advance the field of e-discovery or promote cooperation.

Submissions for the 2019 William P. Butterfield Excellence in eDiscovery Writing Award are still being accepted. Materials must be received no later than June 1, 2019 to be considered for this year’s award. It is anticipated that the 2019 award winner will also be announced at the annual meeting of Working Group 1 in the fall of 2019.

The submissions are judged by an independent panel of eDiscovery practitioners representing both requesting and producing parties, jurists, scholars, as well as a representative from The Sedona Conference and Hausfeld.

For more information about the Award and details about how to enter the competition, please visit the The Sedona Conference website.

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