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Editor’s Note: Received earlier today from BARBRI Group Chairman and CEO Stephen Fredette, the following executive leadership update for the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) involving industry leaders Mike Quartararo and Ari Kaplan is published with permission for your consideration.
ACEDS ANNOUNCEMENT (October 7, 2019)
Dear ACEDS Community,
I’m pleased to announce that effective October 1, Mike Quartararo, a long-time ACEDS member, former law firm eDiscovery director, author and community leader has joined us as President of ACEDS and Professional Development. Additionally, leading legal industry strategist, consultant and author, Ari Kaplan, will apply his talents on a consulting basis to help build a new ACEDS Global Advisory Board and act as Chairperson for that group.
Mike will be assuming the responsibilities of executive director Mary Mack, continuing to build on the tremendous foundation she established, leading the global ACEDS community, growing and supporting the members and local chapters, and reinforcing the best-in-class reputation of the CEDS certification. Additionally, Mike will work to leverage BARBRI’s diverse suite of legal education talent and professional development resources to create new education solutions and certificate programs for ACEDS members and the legal community.
Mike brings 20 years of legal technology and eDiscovery experience to ACEDS. Previously, he was the Director of Litigation Support for Stroock, and prior to that he led eDiscovery projects at Skadden Arps. He was instrumental in building the eDiscovery project management program at Bryan University. Mike has been a member of ACEDS since its founding, helped shape portions of the original CEDS exam, and is part of the inaugural class to take and pass the exam. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike is a graduate of the State University of New York, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and as mentioned above, a Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS).
Ari Kaplan, of Ari Kaplan Advisors, is an attorney, a leading legal industry analyst and an author of several books on the business of law. He is the principal researcher for several well-known and widely distributed benchmarking reports, is a frequent writer and speaker, and is the founder of Lawcountability, a business development platform for lawyers and law firms. We are excited to have Ari lead our Advisory Board with help from Mike and me, and validate ideas related to creating and deploying new initiatives.
I look forward to Mike’s leadership and contributions as we grow our membership, local chapters, and continue meeting the expanding educational and certification needs of the ACEDS community. Mike has been engaged in a smooth transition with Mary since last Tuesday and will continue that process over the next couple weeks, in addition to building out additional members to his team.
I want to reiterate my thanks to Mary and Kaylee for helping build ACEDS into a world-class professional association. The stature and reputation of excellence that ACEDS enjoys is in large part due to their efforts.
I also want to send a special thanks to our affiliate partners, chapter leaders and other advisors for their patience and input as I conducted this search for new leadership. I can say with confidence that our team is in great hands, will continue the good work started by Mary, and we will grow even stronger from here.
Please join me in welcoming Mike and Ari to the ACEDS team.
As always, feel free to reach out to Mike or me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Steve
Stephen Fredette
Chairman & CEO
Additional Reading
- An Unfiltered ACEDS Announcement: A Change in Executive Leadership
- Is Perception Reality? Nineteen Observations on ACEDS in the Summer of 2019
Source: ComplexDiscovery