Connect with sponsors and fellow legal professionals through interactive, sponsor-led discussions. Explore emerging trends in e-discovery, exchange practical insights, and choose among breakout rooms throughout the session. Topics and participating sponsors will be announced.

Welcome to the 14th Annual UF Law E-Discovery Conference. Join colleagues in Gainesville and online as we open two days of practical education and conversation about the changing relationship between law, technology, and the delivery of justice. We’ll introduce the program, welcome our conference community, and set the stage for the discussions ahead.

Take a midday break to connect with fellow attendees, speakers, and sponsors. Continue the morning’s conversations, compare notes on the sessions, and meet colleagues from across the e-discovery community before the afternoon program begins. In-person attendees can enjoy lunch together; virtual attendees can use this time to recharge before rejoining the program.

Nuts & Bolts brings together five fast-paced, 10-minute presentations covering practical e-discovery tips, emerging trends, and essential skills. Each presentation offers a focused introduction to a topic, giving attendees useful insights and ideas to explore further. Individual presentation topics and speakers will be announced.

Full session details will be announced.

A year ago, generative AI in discovery was largely tested through discrete pilots focused on responsiveness review and basic document classification. Today, legal teams are beginning to deploy AI earlier, more broadly, and with greater operational discipline; using it for early case assessment, data mapping, investigations, issue and fact development, privilege analysis, review, and production. The focus has also shifted from prompting alone to defensible workflow design, including human oversight, validation, quality control, and documentation. This panel will examine how AI now fits alongside TAR, analytics, traditional review tools, and human expertise, and how those workflows should adapt as matters and technologies evolve.

November 2022 was a monumental month. Not only did the United Nations report the world’s population exceeded eight billion, the public commercial release of ChatGPT unleashed a computing juggernaut that has made fundamental changes to life and the law. We’ve never had eight billion global neighbors, and we’ve never had over 200 zettabytes of data. Judges have not been immune from these massive technological changes. With uncharacteristic speed, the AI decisions in Mata v. Avianca, Inc. came mere months later, followed by thousands of AI court decisions, including last year’s AI work product triumvirate of Heppner, Warner, and Morgan, and their progeny. What should judges be doing (or not doing) to address this technological transformation? Are extensive local rules on AI counterproductive? In this year’s edition of the Annual Judicial Panel, we’ll hear from the judges on these AI topics while also getting the judges’ takes on traditional e-discovery questions such as proportionality and possession, custody, or control. More fundamentally, we’ll get the judges’ thoughts on whether AI has truly changed the role of the judge or whether we’re looking at an example of The more things change, the more they stay the same, as courts face issues similar to what they faced over a decade ago with the advent of technology assisted review.

Keep the conversations going after Day 1. Join fellow in-person attendees, speakers, and sponsors for a relaxed hour of networking—an opportunity to follow up on a session, exchange ideas, and make new connections across the e-discovery community. After the reception, head out for dinner on your own with new colleagues or familiar friends.

Welcome back for the second day of the UF Law E-Discovery Conference. We’ll reconnect our in-person and virtual audiences, reflect on key themes from Day 1, and introduce a program exploring how AI is changing legal services, professional education, and access to justice. The morning continues with a fireside chat with Bennett Borden.

Take a midday break to connect with fellow attendees, speakers, and sponsors. Continue the morning’s conversations, compare notes on the sessions, and meet colleagues from across the e-discovery community before the afternoon program begins. In-person attendees can enjoy lunch together; virtual attendees can use this time to recharge before rejoining the program.

Nuts & Bolts brings together five fast-paced, 10-minute presentations covering practical e-discovery tips, emerging trends, and essential skills. Each presentation offers a focused introduction to a topic, giving attendees useful insights and ideas to explore further. Individual presentation topics and speakers will be announced.

Full session details will be announced.

Ideally, in a fair and democratic society, it is easy to imagine access to justice as a fundamental right of all people regardless of who or where they are, their station in life, or how much money they have. Yet, countless examples make clear this is not the case. In the gap are people who need legal advice; people facing healthcare challenges, suffocating debt, tax issues, or an eviction notice; or family and estate issues; everyday people with common legal problems they mostly did not ask for that require them to navigate complex legislation and court rules, government administrative structures, and of course, the risk of mounting legal fees that they cannot afford. For years, the courts, legal aid organizations, and law firms have tried to reduce the disparity, but it’s not nearly enough.

This panel discussion will feature legal and technology professionals who are passionate about access to justice and will explore how technology can enable new approaches to legal service delivery and help bridge the gap by raising awareness, educating the public, and providing resources for those who need them.

Generative AI is giving individuals unprecedented ability to research the law, draft pleadings, develop arguments, and navigate the courts without a lawyer. But what happens when the barriers to filing litigation become dramatically lower?

Generative AI is fundamentally changing what it means to represent yourself in court. Individuals who once may have struggled to identify a cause of action, understand procedural requirements, conduct legal research, or draft a complaint can now use readily available AI tools to produce pleadings, motions, discovery requests, and legal arguments that may look remarkably similar to work prepared by lawyers. In important ways, this development has the potential to expand access to justice by making legal information and assistance available to people who cannot afford traditional legal services.

But increased access also presents a new and complicated set of challenges. AI can make it easier not only to pursue legitimate claims, but also to generate voluminous filings, multiply arguments, pursue legally unsupported theories, overwhelm opposing parties with discovery, and present courts with authorities or factual assertions that are inaccurate, misleading, or entirely fabricated. Unlike attorneys, pro se litigants are not subject to professional licensing requirements or the same ethical and disciplinary structures governing lawyers’ use of technology.

This panel will focus on the consequences of this emerging generation of AI-assisted pro se litigation for courts and opposing parties. The discussion will examine what judges and court personnel are already encountering; the practical and financial burdens created when AI enables litigants to generate increasingly sophisticated, voluminous, or repetitive pleadings, motions, and discovery; and the challenges lawyers face in responding efficiently and proportionately. The panel will also consider how existing procedural rules, sanctions, filing requirements, and judicial case-management tools apply to AI-assisted pro se litigants and whether courts may need new approaches to manage this growing phenomenon while protecting the integrity and efficient administration of the judicial process.

Celebrate two days of learning and connection with the UF Law e-discovery community. All conference attendees are invited to join us in person for an evening of music, food, and beverages from 6:30–9:30 p.m. Reconnect with people you met during the conference, continue conversations with speakers and peers, and make new connections in a relaxed, social setting.