Tara S. Lawler

Tara advises clients facing complex, high-stakes litigation and investigation-related discovery issues across a range of industries, including manufacturing and supply chain, technology, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. She partners with clients from the earliest stages of a matter through trial, guiding discovery strategy in individual, mass, serial, and class action matters, as well as coordinated proceedings and multidistrict litigation. Her matters often involve numerous parties, private and government plaintiffs, regulatory considerations, complex court structures, and aggressive discovery schedules.

Clients rely on Tara to lead discovery strategy and execution for large, complex data sets, privilege and confidentiality issues, ESI protocols, protective orders, plaintiff and defense fact sheets, written discovery, witness preparation, and Rule 30(b)(6) discovery-related topics. She works closely with trial teams and in-house legal and technology teams to develop proportional, defensible, and cost-effective discovery strategies, particularly in matters involving massive document volumes, aggressive production demands, production sufficiency challenges, and technology-driven discovery disputes. Where appropriate, she incorporates advanced analytics, statistical sampling, technology-assisted review, and AI-assisted review into discovery workflows designed to withstand scrutiny.

Tara conducts comprehensive discovery assessments for global clients, evaluating current practices, protocols, tools, and workflows and providing practical recommendations to align discovery operations with best practices, reduce risk, improve efficiency, and support legal compliance. She develops playbooks, training programs, and other practical tools to promote compliance, consistency, and effective implementation.

Tara also has extensive experience developing and implementing legal hold and preservation programs for clients. She advises on the full lifecycle of preservation, including assessing legal hold tools, integrating those tools within client IT environments, creating client-specific templates and workflows, and establishing repeatable, defensible processes for issuing, tracking, acknowledging, escalating, and releasing legal holds. She also helps clients define appropriate communication cadences, train users, and operationalize preservation programs so they are consistently executed and defensible.

Tara advises companies on complex information governance and data management risk issues, including enterprise data governance, data retention and disposition, cross-border discovery, and the responsible use of AI. In recent years, her practice has expanded significantly to focus on AI governance, AI risk management, and AI program development. She advises organizations on designing and maturing AI governance frameworks, vetting AI tools, and integrating AI capabilities into existing legal and data governance programs. She also develops AI policies, training programs, rollout strategies, and practical implementation tools for legal, business, and executive audiences. Tara also advises clients on defensible data disposition strategies, including assessment, retention, and deletion of data in accordance with legal, regulatory, and business obligations.

Tara has extensive experience advising clients on data management issues arising from divestitures, acquisitions, mergers, and other corporate transactions. She helps clients establish protocols for identifying, segregating, transferring, onboarding, retaining, and disposing of data during structural changes, including data subject to ongoing legal, regulatory, or business obligations. Tara guides clients through the complexities of managing data within new or evolving company structures while maintaining defensible and efficient practices.

Tara is a frequent speaker and author on eDiscovery, information governance, and artificial intelligence, with a focus on strategy, best practices, and legal developments affecting discovery, IG, and AI.