Proper Choice of Seating For Your E-Discovery Meet and Confer

August 11, 2009 12:32 AM - By Seth | Leave a Comment

It was a Friday evening, and I was worn out from a long week investigating and then filing a motion for a temporary restraining order in an out-of-state trade secrets dispute. My client was steamed, and eager to pounce on the opponent. Naturally coming home didn’t stop my mind from working continuously, reexamining facts, law, and what I could have done differently in our very aggressive briefing. As I was rocking my infant daughter to sleep and I started to relax, my mind became more contemplative, and I realized that perhaps, perhaps I should have taken some steps that some might call “collaborative” instead of assuming the worst about the other side and its counsel…

And so I began to wonder… was it just that I was out of the office, and beginning to wind down that was allowing me to get some perspective? Or was it perhaps the rocking chair itself that was helping this process?

Anyone who has participated in a face-to-face meet and confer session knows that things can get heated and confrontational. For that reason many would prefer to do these sessions over the phone – but it is almost always true that over-the-phone conferences do not require the same level of engagement, which can make a telephone conference much less productive. There is no question that anything that can be done to lower tensions in a meet-and-confer would be a benefit, particularly in Rule 26(f) conferences where cooperation – at least to some degree – is so important.

As it turns out, rocking chairs have been shown to have actual medical benefits in Alzheimer’s patients and for all kinds of surgical recovery. If rocking chairs can help sick folks, perhaps they could calm the nerves of the average over-caffeinated litigator trying to find common ground over the restoration of her client’s backup tapes?

For those of you in the rural South, why not hold your next Rule 26(f) on the porch of your local Cracker Barrel, where they set out rockers for sale – and let me know whether everyone manages to get along.