Elaine Balestra

Elaine Balestra incorporated On Point Technologies Inc. to provide legal technology and business process solutions to law firms and businesses.  Ms. Balestra started her extensive legal experience in 1979 as a legal secretary in a small general practice firm and quickly advanced to a senior securities assistant for a major Calgary firm.  With the introduction of computers to the legal practice in the mid 80s she saw the coming importance of technology and became an early leader in the areas of document processing and training.  This experience resulted in her becoming manager of document processing and training departments for two large Calgary law firms.

Identifying a general need for legal technology consulting, in 1996 she started her own consulting firm, Law Office Technologies, providing firms with software training and support, systems and data conversion planning and implementation, and IT project management.  Ms. Balestra also recognized the importance of providing litigation support services to Canadian law firms and Commonwealth Legal Inc., a Toronto-based litigation support company identified Law Office Technologies as a leader in its field, resulting in the acquisition of her company in 2001. Ms. Balestra joined Commonwealth Legal as General Manager for Western Canada and subsequently become its Vice-President. Through her experience at Commonwealth Legal she acquired extensive experience in managing large-scale litigation automation projects and was responsible for the first major electronic discovery project undertaken by the company.

Ms. Balestra has been a speaker for various groups in the areas of general legal technology and litigation support, including the Legal Education Society of Alberta and Insight Conferences.

Adam S. Bendell

Adam S. Bendell is the president of Strategic Discovery, Inc., which provides discovery consulting to companies and law firms. Mr. Bendell assists clients with the document and data discovery process in civil litigation and government investigations. This includes the collection, analysis, culling, processing, review and production of paper and electronic-source documents, as well as offensive electronic discovery and cost-shifting disputes. He has wide experience in the issues presented by large-scale electronic discovery, including cost control, evidence authentication and chain-of-custody, data conversion, archiving best practices, productions from large databases and web sites, online review and coordination with traditional paper-based discovery. He has designed approaches to paper and electronic document production and review which re-engineer traditional practices to take advantage of enabling technology.

Mr. Bendell was the Chief Technology Counsel for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. In his 12 years with Gibson Dunn, he practiced in the areas of large-case litigation and corporate transactions and established the firm's knowledge management function. He also served as Chair of the Technology Committee, responsible for the firm's overall technology strategy.

Mr. Bendell attended Cornell University and the London School of Economics before obtaining his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1986. Mr. Bendell joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP after a U.S. Federal District Court clerkship. He is a member of the California Bar.

Storm Evans

Storm Evans is an independent consultant offering automation and management services to small law firms. Storm's primary goal is to help firms become more effective through better use of technology, support staff and internal procedures. A graduate of East Texas State University, Storm has been assisting lawyers in the practice of law since 1976. She was an Information Systems Manager at Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston, was an in-house consultant for Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland and now focuses on assisting small law firms.

Ms. Evans has been active in the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association since 1983, where she currently serves as Vice Chair of the Education Board, and serves on the TechShow and Membership Boards. She has been on the faculty of ten of the ABA 's "Technology in the Law Practice" programs and has presented to bar associations in Houston , Cleveland , Columbus , and Philadelphia . She served on the faculty of "Computer Applications for Lawyers" and "Computer Applications for Litigators" presented in 1992 by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute (PBI) in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh, and on the faculty of PBI's "Technology Update Series" in 1993, "The Litigator's Toolbox" in 1995, and the Solo and Small Law Firm Technology conference in 1997.

She writes the "Product Watch" column for Law Practice Management Magazine published by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association, is a frequent contributor to other legal publications and is the author of Time Matters for Lawyers in One Hour, recently published by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association.

Tom O'Connor

Tom O'Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker and writer in the area of computerized litigation support systems. He is a New England native who graduated from The Johns Hopkins University in 1972 with a BA in Political Science. After attending law school for one year at The University of Notre Dame, Tom returned to Baltimore and undertook a career as a paralegal specializing in complex litigation.

His initial exposure to a document intensive case came several years later when he assisted several public interest firms in Boston with a class action voting rights suit brought on behalf of patients at state hospitals. Over the years he has been involved in asbestos litigation, the Keating case, the San Diego Civic Center construction litigation, California class actions against crematoriums, national breast implant litigation, tobacco litigation on behalf of the Attorney General of Texas and various phases of the Enron litigation.

A frequent lecturer on the subject of legal technology, Tom has been on the faculty of numerous national CLE providers and currently teaches a course on legal technology in an ABA approved paralegal program at a local college. He is also a member of the planning board for the annual ABA TechShow as well as the advisory board of the national LegalTech conferences. A prolific writer on the subject, with articles in numerous legal publications as well as being the Editor of several legal newsletters, Tom is also the author of The Automated Law Firm, a guide to computer systems and software published by Aspen Law & Business, now in its fourth edition and The Lawyers Guide to Summation, published by the ABA in the summer of 2004.