US Magistrate Judge John Facciola retires at the end of the year. There are few judges in any jurisdiction who have done as much as he has to further the understanding of electronic discovery not only in the court in which he has sat for many years but in the wider educational setting.

He has urged competence, cooperation and proportionality. He has lamented the exclusion through cost of the middle – the middle classes and the mid-sized companies. He has challenged the government. He has encouraged generations of young lawyers and would-be lawyers to think not just about compliance with rules but with wider issues to do with ethics and with the place of lawyers in a world in which traditional teaching is inadequate for the times.

As someone who is not a US lawyer, I feel particularly privileged to have been asked to take part in a webinar tribute to Judge Facciola in the company of Mary Mack of ZyLAB and Craig Ball.  Judge Facciola himself is taking part and our initial discussions on the telephone suggest that we could comfortably fill an afternoon.

The webinar takes place on 3 December at 1:00pm EST. There is more information and a registration form here.

Photograph by Chris Dale December 2013