ALSP Editorial Board
Joe Howie, editor-in-chief
president, Howie Consulting
Joe Howie consults with companies in the litigation support industry. In the past 20 years he has worked with a number of innovative technology companies, co-founded one of the first document scanning/image-based litigation support operations, was product manager for the first company to offer Texas case law and other primary legal authority on CD-ROM, developed document definitions and data extraction rules for the first auto-coding product, and helped market linguistic search and near-duplicate grouping technology. Previously, he practiced law as in-house counsel for Phillips Petroleum and with the Ohio Attorney General.
Howie has held leadership positions with two ABA publications, serving as editor of the Litigation Applications newsletter and section editor of Winning With Computers, Trial Practice in the 21st Century. He has had numerous articles printed in trade publications, including one of the first electronic discovery articles published in 1989.
Seamus Byrne
COO, eDiscovery Tools
Seamus Byrne is a specialist in providing electronic discovery strategies and solutions to meet the specific requirements of the legal profession and corporate enterprise. Having developed experience through his prior engagements in top-tier legal, chartered accounting and private sectors, Byrne has performed key roles in the advisory, acquisition, discovery, production and life-cycle management of electronically stored information (ESI) in several high-profile litigation matters, representing a number of S&P/ASX 200 and blue-chip international clients. This has included dealings involving the global collection of ESI, handling issues of spoliation, multiple languages and multiple parties, including foreign Governments and outsourced technology providers.
As chief operating officer of eDiscovery Tools, Byrnes is responsible for driving the operational performance of the business and maximizing the value from the premium electronic discovery software products to the Global 100 legal, government legal and service bureau client base.
Barbara Bennett
litigation support manager, Dickinson Wright PLLC
With more than 25 years of experience in the legal field, Bennett’s responsibilities have included project management, administration of litigation case management software, management and supervision of new product testing, administration of Lotus QuickPlace; development and maintenance of firm-wide software training program, development of Lotus Notes databases; management and design of firm-specific word processing templates and macros, law office organization, management, and staff support.
She is the litigation support manager at Dickinson Wright PLLC, managing the firms' litigation cases utilizing CTSummation and WebBlaze, and serves as liaison between attorneys, legal assistants, clients and vendors regarding technology issues and the collection of electronic discovery. As a Certified Summation Trainer with certification in inData's Trial Director, Bennett often assists the firms' litigation attorneys during trials. She has completed the paralegal program at Oakland University and is a Certified Computer Examiner.
Kevin Carr
CEO, InterLegis
Kevin Carr, president of InterLegis Inc., has a wide range of Internet-based technology expertise. As the architect of the InterLegis system, he has developed cutting-edge discovery technologies and best practices relating to data mapping, conceptual analysis, electronic data culling/processing, similarity matching, streamlined document review, automatic categorizations, visual analysis, document digitization, optical character recognition, compression, database indexing, advanced searching and document security. He has worked with Fortune 100 corporations, and national and regional law firms. As a recognized thought leader, he has written several articles and is a requested speaker at industry events.
Michael Potters
CEO/managing partner, The Glenmont Group
Michael Potters co-founded The Glenmont Group in 2001, leveraging more than 20 years of experience in business development and management with expertise in enterprise content management and legal technology. Noticing an absence of firms focused on recruiting and placing highly qualified legal technology talent — and having personally recruited, hired and trained hundreds of technology leaders — Potters set off to create a best-of-breed boutique firm. In seven years, Potters and his partner (and wife ) Kate, have led the successful growth of The Glenmont Group to become the largest executive search firm dedicated to the practice of professional services, legal technology and law firm marketing. Today, the Glenmont Group is in the top 10 percent of management recruiters worldwide.
Caroline Sweeney
director of practice group technology services, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Caroline Sweeney is responsible for the delivery of litigation technology services to all Dorsey offices. This includes overseeing the design and implementation of document and information management databases, delivery of trial technology support, development of customized practice-specific applications, software evaluation and implementation, coordination of vendor services, first-pass document review, and internal training programs for attorneys and paralegals. In addition, Sweeney co-chairs Dorsey's Electronic Discovery Best Practices Committee. She has extensive experience working and consulting with attorneys and clients regarding various e-Discovery issues, including identification, collection, processing, review and production of electronically stored information. She also is responsible for document and design services firm-wide.
Sweeney has more than 20 years of experience in the litigation support industry, having worked in law firm and litigation support vendor environments. She has instructed a Computers in the Law course at the Minnesota Legal Assistant Institute, participated as a presenter/faculty member at various litigation support and e-Discovery conferences, and has been a faculty member for Kroll OnTrack's e-Discovery certification programs. In the early 1990s, Sweeney was a co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Litigation Support Managers and still holds membership. She also is a member of the local Women in e-Discovery chapter.
Debbie Westwood
director, e-Discovery and legal technology, InTechGration
Debbie Westwood started her legal career in the U.S. as a paralegal where she gained experience managing large litigation matters for an AMLaw 100 firm. On moving to Canada she quickly moved into the litigation support field as national litigation team leader for a national law firm where she was involved in the development of their in-house litigation support services and complex e-Discovery matters across the country.
She holds a number of IT and litigation support certifications, including Summation iBlaze, Summation WebBlaze, CaseMap, and the CompTIA A+ certification. Through her business, InTechGration, Westwood offers technology training, litigation support workflow design and department set-up, drafting of RFP’s and litigation readiness plans, as well as project management for e-Discovery cases.