TechInLaw LegalTech ADO Seminar - A 2023 Baseline in Digital Forensics

TLSA Presents – “A 2023 Baseline in Digital Forensics” 

Recorded on October 18, 2023 @ 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM Online via Zoom
1 Hour Ethics CLE 243143ADO

This one-hour CLE presentation is designed to give attendees, with no presumed technical background, an introduction to the field of digital forensics, and its application in legal matters.  The instructor will cover a brief background of the digital forensics field, to current “basics”, including where data sources of interest may be found, and what is possible (or, sometimes, not possible) with respect to the analysis of digital evidence.The CLE will cover certain legal and ethical obligations of which a legal practitioner should be mindful when working with a digital forensic investigator, and as time allows the instructor will provide a brief demonstration of cell phone forensic analysis and reporting.

This seminar will also go into significant detail the legal and ethical obligations for forensic examiners, as well as the need for lawyers to understand how examiners (that you engage) are accessing, storing, and making use of client information, in relation to following ABA Model Rule of Professional Responsibility - 1.6(c) - duty to safeguard client information. 

Faculty 

Clark Walton, Principal and Managing Director, Reliance Forensics, LLC 

Faculty Bio

Clark Walton is the principal forensics and cybersecurity expert for Reliance Forensics. He is a licensed North Carolina attorney, an EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE), and a Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner (CCME).

Clark holds a Mathematical Sciences (Computer Science Option) degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Walton is a former cyber threat analyst and technical project manager for the Central Intelligence Agency, having served there from 2000 to 2005. In that role, he has briefed at the White House and provided written intelligence analysis to high-level consumers including the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Clark is a former adjunct law professor at the Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, NC, where he has taught courses in Evidence and Cyber Crime and has served as an Adjunct Graduate Thesis Advisor in the UNC Charlotte Department of Criminology, primarily in the area of search and seizure of mobile cellular devices.

From 2011 to 2014, Clark sat on the American Bar Association Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, where he was published several times in recent years on issues dealing with the intersection of technology and national security law and data security. He has taught CLE courses on federal criminal computer laws and government authority for digital surveillance and has been featured on local NPR and CBS affiliates discussing issues ranging from Facebook privacy to recent government “leak” cases.  Clark frequently speaks to bar associations and other legal affinity groups, as well as technical trade groups such as local affiliates of the ISSA and the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA).

Clark is also an accomplished attorney, having been named the American Bar Association’s National Outstanding Young Lawyer for 2012-2013.  He previously worked as an associate for the international law firm of Mayer Brown LLP and has served as both an assistant district attorney in Mecklenburg County, NC and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of North Carolina. As a prosecutor, Clark took well over 150 matters to trial. Walton has provided legal testimony in approximately 20 cases and submitted affidavits in dozens of others.  As Reliance’s principal, he has overseen over 650 forensic investigations. He is also a contracted forensic instructor at the National Computer Forensic Institute, a state/federal partnership located in Hoover, Alabama.