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Always Have A Plan

As it is so eloquently stated in the Canadian legal blog, SLAW in the article entitled Practice of Law: Practice Management by Peg Duncan; it is crucial to always have an E-Discovery Project Plan.

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TAGS: E-Discovery, E-Discovery Project Plan, Electronic Data Discovery, Litigation

Your E-Discovery GPS: Are You on the Right Track?

A question I am sometimes asked, and one which never fails to trigger an immediate onset of nervous ticks and twitches, is the question of what general direction most jurisdictions are moving in the majority of their important e-discovery decisions.

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"Massive" E-Discovery Failures Result in $8.5 Million Sanction

For anyone with a few minutes, I would highly recommend reviewing Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., a recent decision out of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. In this case, which was originally a patent dispute, the court imposed a $8.5 million sanction against Qualcomm as a result of “massive” e-discovery failures, the fundamental root of which was “an incredible breakdown in communication.”

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TAGS: E-Discovery, Electronic Data Discovery, Litigation, Sanctions

Oh the stories a copier can tell!

It seems that most every copy machine manufactured since 2002 contains and uses hard disk drives.  Better yet, most all of these copiers are now digital MFPs (MultiFunction Products) that scan, email, fax ,and copy.  As you’ll see in the CBS report, the device has to store a copy of the document being printed or imaged on that hard drive in order to do its work.  Worse, those images can be retrieved, in many cases, just as files on a computer hard drive can be retrieved. 

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Does Your Law Firm Follow ESI Best Practices

Over the years the overwhelming volume of electronically stored information (ESI) continues to grow. 

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TAGS: E-Discovery, EDD Processing, Electronic Data Discovery, ESI, Federal Rule, Technology

Reserve Your Rights: Always Ask for Native

As the document production trend continues to move almost exclusively towards electronic formats, make sure you always indicate in your Request for Production of Documents the specific request that certain information may be requested in native format. This preserves your right to request documents that are not produced in a reasonable usable format to be produced later in a usable manner. Often times the most desirable, usable format is native especially if you anticipate Excel spreadsheets or drafts of contracts that may have hidden formulas or other information such as track changes.

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Recent Court Ruling Could Impact Who Pays the Cost of Producing Electronic Discovery

Traditionally, while a responding party must pay the costs of producing discovery, the cost of duplicating or photocopying documents is not included in this assessment.  However, the advent of electronic discovery largely obviated the requesting party’s fiscal burden.  CBT Flint Partners v. Return Path, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121188 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 30, 2009) is a novel attempt to reinstitute the sense of restraint that precludes “overly broad discovery requests that required the production of 1.4 million electronic documents and 6 versions of source code.” Id. at *10.

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TAGS: E-Discovery, Electronic Data Discovery, Technology

Got Your Head Up In the Clouds? Additional Concerns Over Cloud Computing

In her January 11, 2010 post about Cloud Computing, Chris Meer exposed three important considerations when evaluating whether or not to manage critical e-discovery data in the Cloud:  1) the level and quality of your Cloud service provider’s Internet security model; 2) the ability to access your e-discovery data and documents on a 24/7 basis if needed; and 3) the subsequent finely crafted contractual and working relationship with your Cloud service provider that is absolutely required in order to facilitate that access.

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Zubulake Revisited: Six Years Later

A recent case out of the Southern District of New York sheds additional light on the issue of defining negligence, gross negligence, and willfulness in the e-discovery context, and gives insight into what types of conduct fall in each of those categories. 

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TAGS: E-Discovery, EDD Processing, Electronic Data Discovery, Email Retention, Litigation, Zubulake

Getting the Geeks to Reboot

As the CIO of our firm (I prefer “Head Geek”, thank you very much) I see the time, effort, and money that is being spent on E-Discovery issues and wonder where this is all really going. 

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TAGS: E-Discovery, Electronic Data Discovery, ESI, Litigation, Rule 26, Technology