Ride the Lightning

NO ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE IN WYOMING? AND HOW TO HOOK THE WRONG END OF A TROUT

September 15, 2007

John and I have just returned from lecturing to the Wyoming State Bar at their annual conference in Jackson Hole, one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. We cannot say enough about Wyoming hospitality – our hosts were incredibly gracious, even arranging a fly-fishing trip for us. I do not fly fish (I tried it once and the guide promptly dubbed me "Train Wreck Nelson" which was a fair assessment of my casting ability), but John loves it so I sit in the back of the boat and immortalize his victories through photos. It was a glorious day on the Snake River and our guide Tom was amiable and full of fish lore ("The ‘mend’ is your friend"). John caught 8 cutthroat trout over the course of the day – the only one of appreciable size was the one that he manage to hook firmly in its posterior. Tom, grinning, noted that this was the very first time he’d seen one of his guests manage to do that. The fish, happily, seemed quite unfazed and cheerfully swam off once released.

The Wyoming conference featured us as guest speakers for a plenary session – the night before the session, we had the chance to talk to some of the attendees. One woman, very bright and very nice, explained that she was glad she was going to hear us, but that she wasn’t too worried about electronic evidence, because she didn’t think it would get to Wyoming for another decade or so. Sometimes, it is hard to keep a straight face! I think she might have been surprised the next day, when at least 20% of the audience indicated that they had handled electronic evidence cases already – and the majority of the audience clearly knew that the winds of change were blowing. They knew they needed to be ready, and though the fields of computer forensics and electronic evidence were largely foreign to them, they were apt pupils. We met up with the nice lady at the wine-tasting held by the Bar later in the day, and she commented that maybe 3-5 years would have been a better time frame (at least she’s getting closer!). Anecdotally, one attendee rushed up to the stage immediately after the presentation, having received (during the presentation) an e-mail message from his office that a new case had arrived involving electronic evidence – so, as you might imagine, he had a few questions. While it is still true that many rural areas are not precisely hotbeds of e-evidence at the moment, things are changing rapidly – and attorneys who do not educate themselves in this area are likely to go the way of the dodo bird.

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