Masters Conference Honors Lost Friends
The 10th annual Masters Conference for Legal Professionals, led by founder Robert Childress III, was held last week (Oct. 18 & 19) at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. The agenda covered a wide range of topics, including nuts and bolts; analytics; project management; cybersecurity; the Internet of Things; standards and rules; privacy; and diversity.
The conference drew many veteran e-discovery leaders, such as Ralph Colby Losey (Jackson Lewis); David Horrigan (kCura); George Socha (BDO); Tom O’Connor (Advanced Discovery); Ian Campbell (iConect); Lynn Frances-Jae (Recommind); Michael Potters and Zelda Owens (Glenmont Group); Mary Mack (Aceds); Michael Quartararo (Stroock & Stroock & Lavan), to name just a few.
The dinner brought the participants together, but four seats were vacant at the top of the dais— honoring four e-discovery leaders we have lost due to cancer: Jack Halprin, head of e-discovery at Google; Browning Marean, partner at DLA Piper; Jeffrey Scarpitti, president of TRU Cyber; and Patrick Young, IPRO and LexisNexis.
Childress, a cancer survivor, launched the four awards to honor the past Masters Conference speakers—and is also collaborating with the Georgetown University Law Center to raise money for the Georgetown | Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The inaugual awards are:
The Jeffrey Scarpitti Award for Professional Achievement.
Tom O’Connor, Senior E-Discovery Consultant, Advanced Discovery
The Patrick Young Award for Vendor Leader.
Ian Campbell, CEO of iConect
The Jack Halprin Award
for Corporate Counsel
Aaron Crews, lawyer and technologist at Walmart.
The Browning Marean Award for Outside Counsel
M. James Daley, Senior Counsel, Seyfarth Shaw.




May we remember our four colleagues who are gone and celebrate the continuing work these four winners loved.
Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay
Cover image: Clipart.com