Paul Grimm

The ultimate answer to e-discovery conflicts in litigation may lie with the next generation of lawyers, predicts Paul Grimm, chief magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court (Maryland). Baby Boomers seem indelibly committed to the “notion that discovery is a confrontational process,” says Grimm, who preaches that justice can better prevail when opponents talk first — to determine the facts of the dispute and set discovery parameters — before firing missiles of motions, demands, and objections.

An “Army brat” born in Yokohama, Japan in 1951, Grimm earned his A.B. in classical rhetoric, summa cum laude, at the University of California Davis, in 1973. He was a member of the Reserve Office Training Corps during the Vietnam era, and he credits student protests for influencing important changes in the fabric of the military. “The involvement of civilians [questioning] the military was a leveling process, that had the consequence of bringing contemporatry ideas into the military.” On a personal level, the protests helped him examine his own beliefs, and confirm his commitment to the Army. He felt such strong loyalty to the organization that had paid for his education that he stayed in the reserves for 19 years after earning his law degree at the University of New Mexico School of Law, where was on law review and a member of the Order of the Coif.