As we embark on a new year for the Delaware State Bar Association, we hope you’ll consider joining the newly rebranded Technology and the Law Section. What section is that, you may ask. We are the group formerly known as the E-Discovery and Technology Law Section.
 
We bet many members of the bar had no idea this section existed. We are working to change that with a rebranding of the section and a call to action to join us as we explore the impact of disruptive technology on legal issues and the practice of law. To be clear, the section will continue to provide a forum for eDiscovery issues, but our membership wanted to convey that our interests have been and are far broader than just the impact of technology on discovery. And really, at some point didn’t nearly all discovery become eDiscovery?
 
Our rebranding kicked off with the question of whether the section’s name was too narrow, but the need for a revamp became even more apparent as we dove into an update of our bylaws. We discovered that the bylaws had not been revised for 20 years, and that our section was still officially on the books as the Computer Law Section. Anyone who’s been practicing law during that timeframe can attest to just how much computers have changed and that computers are but one aspect of how technology has affected the practice of law.
 
Twenty years ago, no one had the equivalent of a personal computer in their pocket at all times. Back then, the usage of laptops was uncommon, with most attorneys still using desktop computers. Fax machines were more common than pdf files. Tablets were yet to come onto the scene; instead, Palm Pilots, Blackberries, and digital cameras were emerging. Dial-up home internet connections (using a land-based telephone line that featured a distinctive sound) were still common and not yet reliable enough to facilitate routine work-from-home arrangements.
 
Over the past twenty years, we moved from heavy reliance on the use of paper and the postal service to online services. As young lawyers, we faced the daily 4:30 p.m. or midnight deadlines to get our pleadings physically transported to the court clerk’s office and time-stamped to be counted among the day’s filings. We witnessed the introduction and normalization of electronic court-filing systems. In more recent years, we’ve witnessed what formerly had been in-person-only hearings in many settings transition to remote or virtual (or even hybrid) hearings, whether by teleconference or videoconference (or even both).
 
When the three of us started practicing law, we paid our dues in discovery, which then meant spending days in a conference room with other young lawyers reviewing boxes of paper documents (oh, the relationship bonding that experience generated!). We saw that process transition to electronic discovery as a specialty practice area with the growth of emails, text messages, digital photographs, and so many other forms of electronic communication. A whole new set of processes developed for collecting, culling, searching, sorting, and reviewing (often via out-sourcing to document-review contract attorneys) the massive troves of data implicated in the modern discovery tranches.
 
The proliferation of electronic communications and the tremendous amounts of data created by that expansion also fueled the rise of privacy, cybersecurity, and other data-protection laws. Whether as a consumer or a person involved in running or advising a business, none of us can escape the reach of this jurisprudence. While the law is historically slow to adapt, there’s been a steady influx of activity in this realm, rendering it a constant challenge to keep up with the patchwork landscape of laws and regulations on the local, state, national, and even international levels.
 
The emergence of blockchain technology and crypto assets has created new systems, markets, and opportunities for trustless peer-to-peer interactions over computer networks. These innovations have presented fascinat