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E-Discovery Vendor or Partner: It’s All in the Name

A quick glance at  Dictionary.com reveals the following definitions for the word ‘vendor’ vs. the word ‘partner’:

vendor:
-noun
1.        a person or agency that sells.

partner:
-noun
1.        a person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor; sharer; associate.

How do you and your organization view your relationship with your external e-discovery service provider(s), as those of a vendor, or those of a partner?  Frequently razzed about my overt avoidance of the word ‘vendor’ when seeking e-discovery RFP project consultations and bids at the onset of a new litigation matter, the word ‘vendor’ still never fails to leave a sour taste in my mouth. 

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Be Careful What You Post: Social Networks Are Discoverable

As two recent cases have made it abundantly clear, one must be very careful what is posted on your social networking cites.  I was fascinated by the discussion in the blog on Forbes website entitled: Do Your Social Networking Privacy Settings Matter If You Get Sued? by Kashmir Hill.

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Retrieving Discoverable E-Discovery Data from Social Media Sites: Or, "Wow, is this what I asked for?!"

A great deal of attention has been properly paid to the inherent data privacy and compliance issues surrounding critical e-discovery data stored on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Moreover, when this same data is stored in the Cloud, these issues become further complicated.

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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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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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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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