Right Discovery Staff Writer
eDiscovery is changing quickly. GenAI is creating new categories of potentially discoverable information. Courts are working through questions of admissibility, privilege, proportionality and possession, custody and control. Meanwhile, legal teams are being asked to move faster while still getting the fundamentals of defensibility exactly right.nIn other words, there is plenty to talk about.
This October, Right Discovery will be in New Orleans for The Sedona Conference Working Group 1 Annual Meeting, taking place October 22–23 at The Roosevelt New Orleans. Representing Right Discovery will be Kevin M. Clark, CEO, who will join fellow members and practitioners for two days of focused discussion around some of the most consequential issues facing electronic discovery today.
And if the agenda is any indication, “AI” will be much more than a buzzword.
The 2026 Working Group 1 program goes straight to the questions legal teams are increasingly confronting in real matters: What happens when a GenAI prompt becomes relevant evidence? What about the output? The underlying grounding or training data? What happens when employees use AI tools outside approved enterprise systems? And perhaps the question that will make every discovery professional sit up a little straighter: When can a requesting party seek access to an opposing party’s GenAI tools themselves? The session, “The Intelligence is Artificial, but the Discovery Request is Real: When GenAI Use Becomes Fair Game,” tackles these questions head-on, exploring how familiar discovery concepts such as relevance, proportionality and possession, custody or control apply to a category of data that can be dynamic, ephemeral and proprietary. That is precisely the kind of conversation Right Discovery believes matters.
AI does not exist in a vacuum. It sits inside an ecosystem of data, workflows, people, policies and legal obligations. As AI becomes more integrated into everyday work, understanding what data exists, where it lives, how it was created and how it can be defensibly handled becomes increasingly important.
Another session will explore when GenAI-related information can actually be admitted as evidence, including questions surrounding authentication, relevance, undue prejudice and expert testimony. Privilege is getting its own examination, too.
As lawyers increasingly use GenAI to research, draft, analyze and communicate, the traditional boundaries around attorney-client privilege and work product are being tested. The program will explore potential waiver, tool terms of service, privacy expectations and whether existing privilege doctrine can accommodate GenAI or requires something more. For legal teams, these aren't theoretical conversations anymore. They're becoming part of the practical questions surrounding information governance, discovery strategy, technology selection and defensibility.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Working Group 1 agenda is that it doesn't treat GenAI as the only story. The program also returns to the issues that have always made discovery complicated: case law, proportionality, preservation, collection, production, privilege, protective orders and the ongoing need for constructive conversations between counsel and clients and that balance is important. The future of eDiscovery isn't about replacing established discovery principles with shiny new technology. It's about applying sound discovery practices to an increasingly complicated data environment. The agenda's “Negotiating GenAI in Discovery: A Mock Meet and Confer” promises to bring that idea to life, putting GenAI review tools, protective-order provisions and the scope and burden of producing GenAI-related data into a practical litigation scenario. For anyone who has ever watched a meet and confer take an unexpected turn, this one should be particularly interesting.
Friday's “Voices from the Bench: The Judicial Perspective for 2027 and Beyond” offers another important perspective: what courts are actually seeing. Judicial perspectives on GenAI, ethical obligations, ESI protocols, employee-owned devices and the lack of uniformity around possession, custody and control can provide a useful counterweight to the technology conversation. Because ultimately, discovery isn't happening in a technology conference room. It's happening in litigation, and the decisions being made today about AI, ESI and defensibility will increasingly find their way into tomorrow's courtroom conversations. The program closes with “Duty, Diligence, and Discovery: Current Ethical Issues in eDiscovery,” examining professional responsibility across the discovery lifecycle, from competence and confidentiality to candor, fairness and supervision. It's a fitting reminder that technology may change quickly, but the responsibility surrounding its use doesn't disappear.
For Right Discovery, attending The Sedona Conference this year in New Orleans is about more than keeping up with the latest developments. It's about being part of the conversation that helps shape how the industry approaches them. Kevin M. Clark brings a perspective that spans legal practice, eDiscovery, information governance and technology, making the Working Group 1 discussions a natural fit for Right Discovery's solutions-first approach.
At Right Discovery, we believe the right technology matters. But knowing when to use it, how to use it and how to make the resulting process defensible matters just as much, and that's especially true with AI. The industry doesn't need more AI hype. It needs thoughtful conversations about where AI belongs, where human judgment remains essential and how legal teams can use new capabilities without losing sight of defensibility, accuracy and the evidentiary record. That's the conversation we're looking forward to having in New Orleans.
If you're heading to New Orleans for Working Group 1, connect with Kevin and the Right Discovery team. We'd welcome the opportunity to compare notes, talk through what's changing in eDiscovery and GenAI, or simply catch up with colleagues and friends in the industry.
The Sedona Conference Working Group 1 Annual Meeting
October 22–23, 2026 | The Roosevelt New Orleans | New Orleans, Louisiana
Topics: sedona conference, ediscovery, electronic discovery, generative AI, legal AI, eDiscovery case law, AI discovery, litigation support, privilege, legal technology