Organizations offering to certify electronic data discovery professionals are sprouting up faster than dandelions in May grass — and preying on the members of our legal community who may be the least able to afford the "services" and may not realize how flimsy the certifications may be. The basic premise: Pay $995 to take an exam, offered by a newly formed for-profit organization that has an advisory board full of names you don't recognize. If you pass, they will hand you a piece of paper declaring that you are certified to handle e-discovery.
Unfortunately, too many of these organizations target young, ambitious contract attorneys, paralegals, and litigation support professionals who are trying to better their careers. New lawyers may not even realize the serious ethical challenges created by state bar rules that tightly control how lawyers can present credentials to the public. For example, the California bar strictly regulates specialization, and many other states have ethics rules that forbid lawyers from announcing that they have passed certification programs. The bottom line — hard work and even harder earned dollars are being extracted for a certification that may not be worth the paper it's printed on.
John Rosenthal, litigation partner at Winston and Strawn, and chair of the firm's e-discovery and electronic information practice group, distinguishes between the need for continuing legal education versus certification. "First, it is unethical in many jurisdictions to hold oneself out as either a specialist or certified in a particular practice. Second, many of the certifications are not offered by an accredited law school or college." His third point: the certifications are not meaningful because there is no industry standard as to what candidates will be certified in. "At most, all that should be offered is a certificate of attendance of a course or program."
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Source: law.com
By: Patrick Oot
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