Catalyst’s Free E-Discovery Practicum for Law Schools

Although electronic discovery is increasingly important for court lawyers, only about 30 law schools nationwide offer e-discovery courses. To address the gap, Catalyst, an e-discovery service provider based out of Denver, has developed a practicum that aims to give law students the necessary experience to enter the workforce with adequate fundamental knowledge. So how does the program work and why is it important for future lawyers?

In this episode of Digital Detectives, Sharon Nelson and John Simek interview Bill Hamilton, executive director of the UF E-Discovery Project at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, about their use of the Catalyst practicum. They discuss the curriculum’s components, the program’s pedagogical design, and what this means for the future of e-discovery education in law schools.

Topics include:

What a practicum is

Digital evidence and students using e-discovery software

Instructional videos, structured exercises, and quizzes with feedback

Catalyst’s interest in education and their cloud-based platform

Testing to strengthen retrieval capacity rather than as an assessment tool

Applying the case law to concrete situations

Grading process: low stakes testing and evaluation

The need for law schools to provide more practical training

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