The California Bar issued an important ethics ruling in mid-2016 that all lawyers should know about. The State Bar of California Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct Formal Opinion No. 2015-193 (final version August 2016). The key component of the Opinion is the list of nine tasks that an attorney should either be able to do, or, if they cannot, to associate with other legal counsel who does. Below is the language from the Opinion that describes these tasks followed my video explanation of the knowledge required to competently perform them. The video is divided into four parts with some intentional overlap for emphasis.

Just a few years ago this kind of knowledge was considered arcane and was only known by e-discovery specialists. Now the California Bar has taken a bold leap forward to make this knowledge required for all attorneys who litigate in California. The California Bar has…