On Nov. 5, The Electronic Discovery Institute (EDI) launched a mentorship program aimed at bringing historically disenfranchised communities into the discovery industry.

The EDI Diversity Mentorship Program pairs newcomers to the e-discovery market with established mentors with the intention of helping them forge a path toward leadership in the e-discovery community. EDI leaders made the announcement at an event hosted at risk management and insurance group Zurich North America's headquarters. The program announced a small group of its first mentor-mentee pairs, with mentors drawn from companies like Google, Barclays and KPMG.

“The mission of our program is to pair e-discovery veterans with those new to the practice, and technology professionals who seek a mentor,” announced Zurich vice president and assistant general counsel Demetrius Rush at the event.

Patrick Oot, EDI co-founder and co-chair of Shook, Hardy & Bacon's data and discovery strategies practice group, added that the mentorship program aims to leverage the experience of e-discovery old hands to help newer voices rise through the ranks.

“The mentorship will provide a path for junior practitioners to navigate complex relationships, new opportunities and a support system of resources through EDI's network of connections. Getting folks plugged in to the community is probably the best thing we can do to help them rise through the ranks,” Oot told LTN.

Rush said that EDI's new diversity program was an attempt to marry two definitions of “diversity”—one that represented a wide variety of different genders, races, national origins and other backgrounds, and another that represented a “diversity of experiences, viewpoints and backgrounds.”

“We want to combine the two to foster greater understanding of people who are different,” Rush said.

Rush noted that EDI's mentorship program seeks both experience and background in their mentors and mentees. “As a foundation, we look for people with experience dealing with these issues, but more importantly, we look for people who are willing to share their background, whether it's in the e-discovery space or not,” he said.

Although EDI clearly intends to broaden the kinds of voices in the room, the legal technology space overall still has much work to do to get more women and people of color into leadership positions. Perhaps because it draws from legal and technology, two industries with some of the lowest rates of racial and gender diversity in U.S. markets, legal technology and e-discovery professionals still tend to be a very white and male crowd. Although little demographic data about e-discovery and legal technology exists, women and people of color at legal technology-focused conferences are often frustrated by the lack of peers they see among the crowd.

“Women make up only 35 percent of the speakers and there's one panel with six people, ALL men!” author Jeena Cho wrote for Above the Law of Stanford CodeX's last FutureLaw conference. “Will the faculty of those responsible for shaping our future only consist of 13 percent women? Is this truly the 'future' of our profession?”

EDI has previously attempted to support diversity, providing subsidized opportunities for diverse groups of younger e-discovery professionals to attend its conferences. EDI leaders are hoping that its latest diversity program sparks others in the e-discovery industry to begin thinking creatively about how they too can support a more diverse e-discovery ecosystem.

“We hope this causes a chain reaction,” Oot said.