1001 West Fourth Street, Winston-Salem, NC USA 27101
Scott O’Neal is Principal with Kilpatrick’s LitSmart® E-Discovery Team. Scott manages the team's onsite document Review Center in Winston-Salem with 50+ workstations and multiple active reviews at any time. He also works in collaboration with the firm's Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Governance practice group on a variety of matters related to data breaches involving highly sensitive information. As Document Review Leader, Scott advises case teams on early case assessment and document review strategies and is responsible for ensuring accurate and thorough reviews are conducted in an efficient and cost effective manner. In addition, he conducts QC, privilege and specialized review. With more than 25 years of legal experience, he has managed and assisted with hundreds of document reviews. He has experience in numerous practice areas, including copyright, trademark and patent infringement, trade secrets misappropriation, antitrust and trade regulation, complex business litigation, employment, product liability, and securities and diligence involving financial services. He also provides guidance to case teams on all phases of the EDRM, develops protocols and best practices to assist clients in addressing electronic discovery issues and counsels clients on utilizing tools such as predictive coding and analytics to narrow data sets.
Prior to joining the firm, Scott worked with several e-discovery vendors managing document review teams and assisting with large scale document reviews. Previously, he was founder and owner of O’Neal Law Firm in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where his practice focused primarily on residential and commercial real estate closings including leases, lease negotiations, and lease purchases. In addition, he was founder and owner of Southeastern Title Agency, a title insurance agency which focused primarily on residential real estate and issued policies in the Piedmont Triad, Triangle, and Charlotte regions of North Carolina. Scott also worked as a General Counsel with Prudential Carolinas Realty and North Carolina Association of Realtors where he was responsible for legal affairs for each corporation.
Experience
Managed document review in matter involving a global leader in the design and manufacture of aerospace equipment and systems in responding to an extremely time-sensitive preliminary injunction. Under a deadline to produce documents in 12 days and after the team assisted the client with the on-site identification and collection of electronic data from more than 25 custodians (both structured and unstructured data sets, including archived email) in three states over a period of four days and processed more than 1.2 TBs of data, representing close to 2 million documents, reviewed approximately 35,000 documents and successfully produced 100 GBs of data representing 27,000 documents by the court-imposed deadline.
Managed highly efficient document review for energy pipeline system in a FERC investigation regarding complex tariff issues. With the use of advanced analytics tools, narrowed data set needing review from 550 GBs of data representing more than 2.6 million records to 42,000 documents, saving the client over $200,000 in review costs. Completed review of approximately 42,000 records and prepared for production in 25 days.
Managed and supervised team of attorneys in the review of over 900,000 documents, prepared review protocol and privilege log, and provided daily reporting to Department of Justice team assigned to handle enforcement action brought by a statement environmental agency involving the nation’s largest domestic utility. In addition, prepared declaration and appeared in court to testify regarding culling and review methods, strategy for making privilege determinations and completeness of final productions.
Managed review consisting of extremely dense documents with complicated privilege and confidentiality concerns in repository containing all of client’s potential litigation-related data. Reviewed subset of approximately 165,000 documents with the assistance of 22 contract attorneys over period of several weeks. Designated documents for use in multiple matters, saving the client significant future time and expense.
Managed document review in case for one of the world's largest entertainment corporations utilizing complex analytics and predictive coding to reduce data set containing over 250,000 to a core set of 35,000 needing review.
Managed and supervised review of approximately 50,000 documents in patent infringement litigation involving complex pharmaceutical matters and terminology, requiring heavy redactions of unrelated products and other confidential material. Developed strategy and workflow to redact spreadsheets in automated fashion, requiring minimal eyes-on QC review.
Led review of over 3,000,000 documents in connection with a class action lawsuit brought against one of the country’s largest restaurant chains and, using analytics, reduced data set needing review by 75%.
Managed and supervised a team of attorneys in the review of over 300,000 documents in connection with complex civil litigation involving the bidding process of multi-media rights with a major Division 1 university.
In collaboration with the firm's Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Governance practice group, Scott has managed a variety of matters including:
Led review of approximately 1 TB of data representing more than 500,000 documents containing highly sensitive personal information in investigation and remediation involving massive data breach. Over a period of weeks, organized and trained a team of 60 contract attorneys stationed on-site at the firm’s Review Center in Winston-Salem. Complex review included thousands of Excel spreadsheets that contained highly sensitive personal information and banking data, requiring detailed review and extensive redactions.
Led review team in response to a phishing attack against a global IT service management company. Developed review strategy using combination of complex search terms and analytics to narrow the number of documents for review in determine the presence of any notice-triggering information. Worked directly with the client to assess and determine risk.
Led review team in response to a ransomware attack against a global manufacture of building and industrial products. Oversaw the data transfer and analysis of possible state-specific notice-triggering elements of potential compromised data. Significantly reduced the number of documents for review through use of complex search terms and analytics.
Led review team in assessing potential breach due to employee error for a large, global insurance company. Review and analysis of documents to determine if any data was accessed and the presence of any notice-triggering personal identifiable information (PII) based on United States and International privacy laws.
Led review team in assessing a data breach involving a large, North Carolina municipality. Used complex, customized search terms and advanced analytics to reduce the number of documents for review and identify any notice-triggering personal identifiable information (PII) and/or personal health information (PHI).
Insights View All
Campbell University School of Law (1991) Law
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.S. (1988) Political Science
North Carolina (1991)
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina
U.S. Supreme Court
Forsyth County Habitat for Humanity Finance Committee, Member
Campbell University School of Law Alumni Board of Directors, Member
Quality of Life Foundation of North Carolina, Board of Directors, Member
Youth Basketball, Baseball and Softball, Coach
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