Ben Barnett Email & Phone Number

I enjoy working directly with clients and their teams to creatively solve their legal issues, which normally involve developing and deploying strategic eDiscovery solutions for multi-jurisdictional matters or parallel criminal investigations and civil litigation. eDiscovery continues to be a complex challenge for many companies because of the explosion in data volume, the proliferation of third-party messaging, hosting, and data storage options (including the Cloud), and the ever-expanding patchwork of nation state laws restricting access to or the export of company or personal data residing within their borders.

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  Partner

  Dechert Llp

  2004 - Present

  Most of my work involves developing long-term, sustainable solutions for clients to reduce their legal risks and costs associated with eDiscovery, to better prepare them to address future discovery challenges, and reduce the need to rely on outside counsel. In those instances, my goal is actually to work myself out of a job and I’ve been fortunate to have some real success with great clients. The most recent significant example of such work was the disclosure strategy for the Airbus global investigation. Working with a first-rate in-house team and virtual law firm, we designed and implemented a strategy to prioritize the production of key documents and findings to authorities in France, the UK, and the U.S. This positioned Airbus to resolve the allegations of criminal conduct in dozens of countries through a same day Deferred Prosecution Agreement in all three jurisdictions. The sprawling investigation was concluded relatively quickly and Airbus received millions in cooperation credit from the authorities. Significantly, the UK authorities conducted their own independent document review and identified no additional material evidence beyond that first disclosed by Airbus and its counsel. To operate and advise clients effectively in this area, I’ve expanded my knowledge and expertise to other related areas, including blocking statutes, data privacy regimes, and cross-border data transfers. I have also advised companies on data monetization projects and have a strong (if skeptical) interest in AI because some issues are too important to be left solely to coders.