February 29, 2024
Dear Readers,
We are proud to present you with Issue Two of the Thirtieth Volume of the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology. This issue includes three articles, each discussing a timely topic at the intersection of law and technology.
Our first article is authored by Matthew Reiber. Mr. Reiber is an Associate Professor at Jacksonville University College of Law. A former litigator, he holds an LL.M. (taxation) from New York University School of Law and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. Professor Reiber’s article reviews the federal statute that authorizes district courts to award prevailing parties their litigation costs, and specifically, the application of that statute to prevailing parties’ expenses collecting, processing, and producing electronically stored information in discovery. The article explains that the statute, as currently construed, allows district courts to award prevailing parties only a small fraction of their expenses for these activities and argues that this construction is inconsistent with the practical reality of discovery. The article therefore advocates for an amendment to the statute that would give the district courts greater discretion to award prevailing parties some or all of these expenses based on several case and party-specific factors.
Our second article is authored by Natalie Murphy. Ms. Murphy is a J.D. candidate at the University of Baltimore School of Law and will begin work as a trial attorney at the District of Columbia Public Defender’s Service in the fall of 2024. Ms. Murphy wrote her Article while clerking at Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender, where she watched Baltimore City courts rely on evidence from the TrueAllele probabilistic genotyping algorithm to incarcerate one person after another. In her article, she argues TrueAllele falls short of the Daubert standard, and Georgia, Florida, and Maryland currently face opportunities for making influential Daubert challenges against its use in state courts.
Our third article is authored by Cleo-Symone Scott. Ms. Scott is a third-year law student at the University of Richmond School of Law. Ms. Scott’s article delves into the legal and ethical dilemmas surrounding biopiracy, highlighting the exploitation of indigenous knowledge and resources without proper acknowledgment or compensation. It advocates for new laws and digital databases to ensure equitable benefit-sharing and to protect the rights of indigenous communities against unauthorized use of their biological materials and traditional knowledge. Ms. Scott’s article won second place in the 2023 Georgetown Law Technology Review Writing Competition, an annual competition sponsored by The Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law. The article also won second place in the 2023-2024 McNeill Law Society Writing Competition, an internal competition at the University of Richmond School of Law judged by alumni and distinguished members of Virginia’s legal community.
I would like to thank our fantastic authors for their contributions to our journal and to the legal field. I would also like to thank the JOLT Staff, Editorial Board, and Executive Board for their hard work in bringing this Issue to fruition. Finally, I want to give a special thank you to our new Associate Editors who stepped up to lend a much appreciated helping hand this Issue.
On behalf of the JOLT team, we truly hope you enjoy Issue Two.
Paige Skinner
Executive Editor
Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, Volume XXX
ARTICLES
Cost Shifting For E-Discovery: A Suggested Reform
by Matthew Reiber
Give Me Liberty or Give Me the Source Code: Challenging A Black-Box Computer Algorithm Under Daubert
by Natalie Murphy
Biopiracy: Using New Laws and Databases to Protect Indigenous Communities
by Cleo-Symone Scott