Jennifer Mott Williams

Partner

Jennifer Mott Williams helps clients develop and implement efficient ways to manage increasingly challenging information governance (IG) and eDiscovery processes. Jennifer leads the IG subpractice of the firm’s data analytics and governance practice. With over 25 years of experience, she provides practical real-world advice on how to handle the evolving technological landscape, including artificial intelligence (AI), and associated legal obligations.

Jennifer works closely with clients to align AI initiatives with effective IG. Jennifer remains abreast of the rapidly evolving technological landscape, assisting clients with their assessments and implementations of AI technologies. She helps evaluate legal strategies related to use and drafts AI policies and procedures to minimize legal risks associated with AI. Jennifer advises clients on integrating AI with effective IG practices, helping organizations address the governance, compliance, and records management considerations associated with AI use.

Recognizing that IG is vital to an organization’s compliance efforts, Jennifer works closely with clients to implement best practices across the information lifecycle, including data creation, retention and disposition, data privacy, and strategies to protect key information assets. Jennifer routinely advises clients on IG and eDiscovery from ever-changing AI platforms, collaborative tools, cloud technologies, mobile devices, applications, and social media platforms. She assists clients in crafting and revising compliance and monitoring procedures to address the unique legal and operational challenges created by the use of such technologies. Jennifer helps clients assess, implement, and govern technology usage in ways that align with legal, regulatory, and operational obligations.

When litigation arises, Jennifer consistently collaborates with clients and negotiates with opposing parties to ensure that the scope of electronic discovery is reasonable and proportional to matters. She frequently participates in Rule 26(f) conferences and negotiates electronically stored information (ESI) protocol provisions and protective orders to address complex issues associated with AI, changing technologies, cross-border privacy regulations, production specifications, FRE 502(d) orders, and privilege logging.

Jennifer advises clients on end-to-end discovery processes, including litigation holds and preservation, ESI protocols, collection strategies, data culling and iterative search-term processes, the overall document review (including the use of both AI for review and TAR), and the production process. She further assists with discovery motion practices and has successfully defended clients’ discovery practices both in submissions on the pleadings and in hearings. Jennifer currently serves as the eDiscovery and IG advisor to one of the largest pharmaceutical companies. She has assisted pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and energy companies with the creation of their eDiscovery workflows and processes. Jennifer also currently serves as national discovery coordinating counsel for a Fortune 500 financial services company and serves as the eDiscovery liaison for a number of clients in a variety of jurisdictions. Jennifer previously served as the national eDiscovery coordinating counsel for several similar class actions in which she worked with in-house and outside counsel from multiple jurisdictions.

Jennifer frequently speaks on AI, IG, eDiscovery, and data privacy issues.

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  • Served as the IG and eDiscovery advisor to a pharmaceutical company, evaluating the client’s current IG and discovery practices to identify opportunities for improvement and guiding the client on issues related to AI rollouts, mobile device policies, and consistent and defensible eDiscovery processes and procedures
  • Provided guidance to a technology corporation creating AI technologies on best practices for data donation, data training, and protecting client confidentiality
  • Worked with a healthcare client and IT vendor to create and fine tune an AI model to assess data use and compliance with corporate IG and record retention policies
  • Reviewed and updated corporate policies to address the use of generative AI, meeting recordings, and AI notetaking and summarization to address appropriate use, consent, risk mitigation, retention, and disposition of information generated
  • Assessed a global medical organization’s ongoing human resources data creation, data storage, data transfer, and data proliferation to provide legal guidance related to the ability to appropriately respond to DSAR process, including timely locating data, providing access to data, and deleting data as required by various privacy regulations
  • Modernized an infrastructure organization’s acceptable use, information security, and record retention policies to account for evolving corporate technology
  • Revised a global manufacturing organization’s record retention schedule to account for regulatory obligations and business needs
  • Advised a global conglomerate undergoing a divestiture on information governance issues including identifying, segregating, transferring, disposing, and ensuring ongoing data sharing and cooperation between parties following divestiture
  • Counseled a biotechnology client on defensible data disposition for legacy data, including assessing regulatory obligations and legal holds, to support deletion process
  • Developed and implemented defensible discovery workflows, including the creation of a legal hold policy, data processing procedures, and discovery templates, including templates to address UK and EU GDPR considerations, for a financial services organization
  • University of Texas School of Law, 2000, J.D., with honors
  • University of Virginia, 1997, B.S., with distinction
  • Texas
  • US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas

Recipient, Yellow Belt, Legal Lean Sigma®

Recommended, Dispute resolution: E-Discovery, The Legal 500 US (2022–2025)