Patrick L. Oot
Director of Electronic Discovery and Senior Counsel
Verizon

Patrick Oot is Director of Electronic Discovery and Senior Litigation Counsel at Verizon in Washington, DC. Mr. Oot is considered one of the nation's leading experts on electronic discovery. He has extensive experience in discovery practices involving commercial litigation, regulatory filings, and antitrust matters. Mr. Oot is charged with advising Verizon's business units on electronic discovery while developing new technologies that increase cost-efficiency. Recently, Mr. Oot appeared with United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at Georgetown University Law Center's H5 Summit on Electronic Discovery. Mr. Oot has testified before the Judicial Conference's Federal Rule Committee where he presented Verizon's position on Proposed Rule of Evidence 502. The Committee included in its draft to the Judicial Conference language incorporating Mr. Oot's suggestions.

In 2006, Mr. Oot was nominated for the Verizon Excellence Award after playing a key role in the successful completion of Verizon's response to the Department of Justice's Second Request for Documents in its acquisition of MCI. Recently, Inside Counsel Magazine named Verizon's ediscovery team as one of the ten most innovative legal groups of 2007, the group's second year winning the title. He has also testified as Verizon's 30(b)(6) witness for discovery-related inquiries in other matters.

Currently, Mr. Oot is a member of the advisory board for The Georgetown University Law Center CLE Program's Advanced E-discovery Institute, and The eDiscovery Institute, an independent search and retrieval science consortium. Mr. Oot actively participates in The Sedona Conference's working groups; focusing on best practices for selecting search and retrieval technology and e-mail management systems. He is a member of the International Legal Technology Association, and has co-chaired Martindale-Hubble's Counsel to Counsel electronic discovery roundtables. Mr. Oot lectures regularly at educational events, legal conferences, and general counsel round tables internationally.

He received both his B.A. and J.D. from Syracuse University and his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Oot is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts and is also registered corporate counsel in Virginia.