I am very pleased to announce that the American Bar Association will soon publish a book based on this blog. It will be called e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases. This will be, to my knowledge, the first time a legal blog has become a book, now sometimes called a “blook.” Although the book will not be exactly the same as the blog, it will be derived from and based on it.
Thanks to all of you, my thoughtful blog readers, for the many encouraging comments and suggestions you have provided. Your positive input and support led me to propose this project. Thanks also to ABA Publishing for having the vision and energy to make it happen.
The ABA is rushing the book to print so that it will be available by December. That is extraordinarily quick for a book publisher, far faster than any of the other major legal publishers who also expressed an interest in the project. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this material, I felt that it was important to get to press quickly. The ABA, which has been great to work with, is committed to making that happen.
So how can you be a part of this blog-to-book project? Leave a good, substantive comment on any of the blogs I have ever written, and it may be included in the book. One of the unique things about the new book is that it will include select comments by blog readers, and occasionally, my responses to these comments. In a few weeks, I will have a chance to add a few additional blog comments to the final version of the book. So please, add your comments in the next two to three weeks and you may become a part of this blog-to-book project. Please do it now!
As far as I know, this is also another first: an author opening up his book for anyone to review and add content to just before its publication. Take advantage of this opportunity and join me in providing content. This new field of law and technology is, or at least should be, both interesting and exciting. Help me spread the buzz by adding your ideas and insights. Keep it short and sweet, and your comment might make it to print.
Although comments will be anonymous and may be edited, the blog will remain online even after the book is published. That means everyone will be able to access the blog and see the original comments, including commentators’ names when provided. Another interesting thing about the project, one that I frankly did not expect, is that the ABA wants me to keep all of the blogs online, available to everyone for free, even though the book will be very close in content to the original blogs. They see the law blook as a win-win media convergence. The ABA is following other mainstream publishers who, according to a Wall Street Journal article, have already discovered that blogs-to-books can be a recipe for success.
e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases is expected to be about 90,000 words in length (including your comments). The blogs will be edited, and sometimes added to and rewritten, and then reorganized and presented by categories in Seven Chapters:
Chapter One – Introduction to E-Discovery
Chapter Two – New Ethical Standards for E-Discovery
Chapter Three – New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Chapter Four – Spoliation and Sanctions
Chapter Five – Metadata
Chapter Six – Search and Review of ESI
Chapter Seven – New Technologies
There will also be an Appendix with several useful reference materials, including the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on e-discovery.
I know from your feedback that the “blook,” like the blog, will be very accessible to all types of readers. Litigation attorneys with years of experience in e-discovery will enjoy the analysis and finer legal points. So too will sophisticated in-house counsel, and academicians. Still, the material is also very accessible to lawyers just beginning in this area, or those who just want to learn something about e-discovery, including paralegals, law students, and law firm IT support professionals. Since most of these blogs explore recent events and technology issues, as well as the law, they have also been of interest to many technologists and management professionals outside the legal profession. Many of my regular blog readers are non-lawyer IT experts and management involved in some way with e-discovery or general information management services.
If you like the blog, you’ll like the book too. You will be able to order it online from the ABA as soon as it is released. If you would like, I can also endorse copies any way you want, just send me an email. They might make a good present for your clients and customers, and should be out in time for the holidays.
Again, my thanks to all of you, my law firm, and the ABA for helping to make this blog into a book, and thus spread the word even further of the interdisciplinary team solution to the many issues and challenges of e-discovery.
Congratulations! I have a blog about blooks, Blooking Central, and will post your information there. I’m very curious to know how the blook will be put together — how the posts are being selected, for instance. I do publish author letters on process, so perhaps you would be willing to write to me. We could do a Q&A if you would prefer. Again, congrats!
well done, brother