PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER NORCROSS & JUDD
by Cynthia Price
Legal News
The Department of Justice’s upcoming policy changes on criminal case discovery, particularly e-discovery, are complex and potentially
onerous.
Just ask Warner Norcross and Judd’s Sarah Riley Howard.
She “wrote the book” (or at least the chapter) on the subject for the new Aspatore Books publication Understanding DOJ Discovery Policies: Leading Lawyers Analyze the New Discovery Guidelines Affecting White Collar Cases.
A promotional description of the book, which came out in January, says it will “enable readers to get inside some of the great legal minds of today...” in reference to Howard and other authors.
Aspatore is a Thomson Reuters business that is one of the largest publishers of books aimed at C-level executives. Understanding DOJ Discovery Policies is part of Aspatore’s “Inside the Minds” series, which, according to Howard, engages attorneys nationwide in writing on “quasi-current” trends. She explains that the publishers reach out to large law firms with practice groups in the area of expertise they seek.
As the chair of the White Collar Criminal Defense practice at Warner, Norcross and Judd, Howard was a natural. She obviously already knew a great deal about the Department of Justice discovery policies since approximately half of her cases involve the DOJ. She agreed to write the chapter and delve into the most up-to-date information.
Her chapter in the book, one of five, is entitled, “Upcoming Policy Changes to DOJ Discovery and the Future of E-Discovery in Criminal Cases.”
Howard had already racked up an impressive number of accolades and honors, including the designation of “Rising Star in Michigan” 2010 and receiving the Carl Gussin Memorial Prize for student trial advocacy work in 2001.
Howard’s particular specialty is in federal litigation and appeals, representing businesses and individuals, as well as in complex civil litigation. She also works with the Department of Justice and its Antitrust Division as the practice group chair, since some of the lawyers in the group specialize there.
She is a Partner at Warner Norcross, and has a long history of success in her cases, including those in the Michigan Supreme Court. She has worked with clients on first amendment, libel and slander concerns. As the former editor of The Western Herald during her undergraduate college years at Western Michigan University, she was able to relate to her newspaper clients’ concerns.
Howard graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan in 2001.
She is a former chair of the Grand Rapids Bar Young Lawyers Section, and a current member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan.
Understanding DOJ Discovery Policies is an up-to-date look at such recent developments as the Jan. 4, 2011, memos issued by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden for prosecutors. These resulted from task forces Ogden had assembled, and are intended to augment already-existing statutes and case law.
An example that Howard points to is a situation where an assistant attorney general interviews a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. If notes are not made of that conversation and included in the file, failure to include that in the discovery process constitutes a violation.
Though the memos and other DOJ policy cover all formats of discoverable materials, it is clear that some of the most onerous requirements occur in the instances of electronic discovery.
Howard said that it is increasingly problematic to locate all of the electronic information, and it poses some daunting challenges for some of her clients.
However, she says that the DOJ’s new policies really aim at a worthy goal. “The duty to disclose all the information about a case really goes to serve the interest of seeing that justice is done,” she comments.
Warner Norcross first-year associate Sarah Cochran assisted Howard in her research and drafting the chapter.
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