Seyfarth Shaw LLP

eDiscovery & Information Governance

Partner and Deputy Chair, eDiscovery & Information Governance Practice Group

Jay partners with clients to manage their information, balance the risk it creates, and leverage it strategically in litigation to build a winning narrative and keep the case focused on the merits.

Faced with the legal, strategic, and operational challenges of information governance, clients rely on Jay for proactive counseling and response engagements in the areas of eDiscovery litigation, data retention and management, privacy matters, data security, internal investigations, and regulatory response. Jay combines hands-on technical skill, and business and litigation experience to craft innovative, practical solutions that balance the competing business demands, realities, and legal risks of creating, maintaining, and using information. A litigation partner at the Chicago office, Jay also serves as deputy chair of the eDiscovery & Information Governance practice group.

Jay has a passion for technology, hands-on experience in the technology industry, and significant litigation experience. This provides him unique insights into the challenges faced by, and often competing interests of, in-house legal teams and IT departments when dealing with complex information governance and eDiscovery matters. Jay’s technical background includes more than 10 years of experience consulting in the private industry in technology systems administration and security, knowledge management, and technical project management.

Jay is not afraid to litigate discovery matters aggressively and approaches discovery as an opportunity to drive the narrative and pace of the matter while minimizing discovery risk and costs. As a litigator, Jay regularly leverages the latest in AI and continuous active learning technology to increase speed to key evidence and reduce discovery spend. He has successfully defeated spoliation and related allegations, as well as aggressively exposed discovery-related weaknesses of the opponent. In counseling engagements, Jay has developed repeatable and efficient eDiscovery processes for in-house programs, as well as for handling discovery in a portfolio of litigation matters. In addition, he has developed in-house eDiscovery and information governance programs and guidelines for outside counsel, and designed and executed defensible data destruction projects involving petabytes of information.

Jay also regularly manages forensic investigations, including misappropriation and theft of trade secrets, and directs internal investigations, including whistleblower investigations and investigations resulting from regulatory inquiry.

Jay is an active speaker on eDiscovery and information governance topics and works to promote innovation and entrepreneurial efforts to provide better client service.

JD, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology BA, University of Dayton