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Doug Austin

Printed Copies of Documents Not Enough, Spoliation Sanctions Upheld for Discarding Computer – eDiscovery Case Law

On May 30, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department upheld a spoliation sanction against a plaintiff that failed to preserve electronic files and discarded his computer containing those files.

As reported in IT-Lex.org (Gross Negligence + Lack Of Litigation Hold = Spoliation Sanctions), In Harry Weiss, Inc. v. Moskowitz, a dispute involving diamond dealers and brokers, the Appellate Division upheld the defendants’ motion for spoliation sanctions to the extent of precluding plaintiff from offering any evidence and/or testimony at trial in opposition to defendants’ defenses and counterclaims, unanimously affirmed, with costs.  As noted in the transcript:

“More than two years into this litigation, plaintiff’s bookkeeper revealed at his deposition for the first time that certain electronic files that were created to track defendants’ commissions were either “lost” or “deleted” at the end of 2007 and 2008, after a copy of the file had been printed. The bookkeeper further testified that he created and kept all of plaintiff’s records on one computer, which had been in use for the last ten years. A month later, when defendants’ attorney sought to forensically examine the computer to determine if any of the deleted files could be restored, plaintiff’s bookkeeper claimed, for the first time, that the computer was “broken” and had been thrown away in late 2009 or early 2010, after the commencement of this action. Thereafter, the bookkeeper testified that numerous documents supporting plaintiff’s claim that defendants were not entitled to commissions could not be produced because they were stored only on the discarded computer.”

The plaintiff was put on notice of its obligation to “preserve all relevant records, electronic or otherwise,” at the very latest, in July 2009, when it received defendants’ answer asserting counterclaims for commissions, so the disposition of the computer was spoliation of that data.

The plaintiff claimed that disposal of the computer did not cause defendants any prejudice because many of the files were printed prior to its disposal, but the court rejected that argument, noting that “converting the files from their native format to hard-copy form would have resulted in the loss of discoverable metadata”. “In addition, by discarding the computer after its duty to preserve had attached without giving notice to defendants, plaintiff deprived defendants of the opportunity to have their own expert examine the computer to determine if the deleted files could be restored”.

So, what do you think?  Was the sanction justified?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Free Your Mind, the Matrix Has You – eDiscovery Trends

OK, maybe it’s not The Matrix with Neo and Morpheus, but if you perform a role in eDiscovery, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Talent Task Matrix probably describes the responsibilities associated with your role in the process.

Back in February, we introduced the Talent Task Matrix as a tool collaboratively developed by EDRM’s Jobs Project Team to help hiring managers better understand the responsibilities associated with common eDiscovery roles. The Matrix maps responsibilities to the EDRM framework, so eDiscovery duties associated can be assigned to the appropriate parties.

The EDRM Talent Task Matrix Spreadsheet is available in XLSX or PDF format.  It shows the EDRM Stage and Stage Area, the Responsibility within each stage, followed by the various positions that have responsibilities within the eDiscovery life cycle.  It shows a “Yes” for each responsibility that each position participates in the responsibility.  There are 130 responsibilities listed in the Matrix, covering the entire EDRM life cycle.

Since the release of the Matrix in January 2013, it has been downloaded more than 1,000 times!  Chances are, at least some of you reading this have downloaded it.

Now, as indicated in this press release, the EDRM Jobs Team is interested in learning how the Matrix is used by people responsible for hiring and professional development in their organizations. They specifically want to know how the Matrix was used and what results were achieved.  They plan to use success stories regarding use of the Matrix to develop case studies to be posted on EDRM.net.

If you have downloaded the Matrix or know of someone who has downloaded the Matrix, EDRM would like to hear from you!  Contact Tom Gelbmann or George Socha (at mail@edrm.net) to share your experiences and results (all responses will be held in confidence).

If your organization has not yet used the Matrix, but intends to do so, you can still contact them and provide a brief summary of your plans to use the Matrix and any comments or recommendations you may have to improve on the Matrix to meet your needs.  It may not have those gun racks that appear out of nowhere, but it’s still pretty cool.

So, what do you think?  Have you used the Talent Task Matrix?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Is it OK for an eDiscovery Vendor to Work on Both Sides of a Case? – eDiscovery Best Practices

A few weeks ago, we covered a case where the plaintiffs’ motion to compel the defendant to meet and confer to establish an agreed protocol for implementing the use of predictive coding software was dismissed (without prejudice) after the defendants stated that they were prepared to meet and confer with the plaintiffs and their non-disqualified ESI consultants regarding the defendants’ predictive coding process.  The sticking point may be the ESI consultant in dispute.

As reported by Victor Li in Law Technology News (Judge Refuses to Disqualify EDD Vendor for Playing Both Sides), the defendant in Gordon v. Kaleida Health is taking its fight to the U.S. District Court to have eDiscovery vendor D4 Discovery disqualified from working on the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.  In their initial objection on June 5 and their July 12 filing, Kaleida Health claimed that New York Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio erred and that D4 should have been disqualified.  As the article notes, “Kaleida’s attorneys at Nixon Peabody had decided to use predictive coding to go through its gigantic cache of 300,000 to 400,000 emails, and had hired D4 (in 2010) to provide scanning and coding services. In 2011, D4 entered into a contract to provide e-discovery consulting services to the plaintiffs. Despite D4’s representation that its consultants had not been involved in the project for Nixon Peabody, Kaleida and Nixon Peabody objected.”

In his ruling, Foschio ruled that there was no conflict of interest for reasons including:

  • D4’s involvement with Kaleida was limited to scanning and coding documents;
  • Kaleida failed to show that D4 had access to any confidential information;
  • D4’s duties to Kaleida were “a routine clerical function” (similar to photocopying documents) while services provided to the plaintiffs were “requiring expert knowledge or skills”;
  • D4 had only been hired to code objective information into assigned fields and was not asked to identify substantive case issues or make subjective decisions about the documents;
  • D4 had actually subcontracted its work for Kaleida to Infovision 21.

Conversely, Kaleida and its attorneys at Nixon Peabody argued that there was a confidential relationship with D4 and that D4 had access to sensitive information, arguing that the plaintiffs’ attorneys at Thomas & Solomon spoke directly to Amir Karahasanovic, the D4 employee who had handled the Kaleida job, violating that confidential relationship.

Li’s article also quotes Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) co-founder George Socha (a thought leader interviewee on this blog for the past three years), who referenced the EDRM’s Model Code of Conduct (our previous post about it here) as a means to encourage vendors to avoid these types of situations.  In Guideline 9 of Principle 3 (Conflicts of Interest) of the code, it states “Service Providers should not proceed with an engagement where one or more conflicts have been identified until those conflicts have been resolved and the resolution is adequately memorialized to the satisfaction of all parties involved.”

So, what do you think?  Are there some services or situations where it’s acceptable for an eDiscovery provider to work on both sides of a case?  Or should providers only do so if both parties agree?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Court Rules that Stored Communications Act Applies to Former Employee Emails – eDiscovery Case Law

In Lazette v. Kulmatycki, No. 3:12CV2416, 2013 U.S. Dist. (N.D. Ohio June 5, 2013), the Stored Communications Act (SCA) applied when a supervisor reviewed his former employee’s Gmails through her company-issued smartphone; it covered emails the former employee had not yet opened but not emails she had read but not yet deleted.

When the plaintiff left her employer, she returned her company-issued Blackberry, which she believed the company would recycle and give to another employee. Over the next eighteen months, her former supervisor read 48,000 emails on the plaintiff’s personal Gmail account without her knowledge or authorization. The plaintiff also claimed her supervisor shared the contents of her emails with others. As a result, she filed a lawsuit alleging violations of the SCA, among other claims.

The SCA allows recovery where someone “(1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or (2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility; and thereby obtains . . . access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system.” “Electronic storage” includes “(A) any temporary, intermediate storage of a wire or electronic communication incidental to the electronic transmission thereof; and (B) any storage of such communication by an electronic communication service for purposes of backup protection of such communication.”

The defendants claimed that Kulmatycki’s review of the plaintiff’s emails did not violate the SCA for several reasons: the SCA was aimed at “‘high-tech’ criminals, such as computer hackers,”‘ that Kulmatycki had authority to access the plaintiff’s emails, that his access “did not occur via ‘a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided’ other than the company owned Blackberry,” that “the emails were not in electronic storage when Kulmatycki read them,” and that the company was exempt because “the person or entity providing an electronic communications service is exempt from the Act, because the complaint does not make clear that plaintiff’s g-mail account was separate from her company account.”

The court rejected all but one of the defendants’ arguments. The SCA’s scope extended beyond high-tech hackers, and the Gmail server was the “facility” in question, not the plaintiff’s Blackberry. The court also found that the plaintiff’s failure to delete her Gmail account from her Blackberry did not give her supervisor her implied consent to access her emails; the plaintiff’s negligence did not amount to “approval, much less authorization. There is a difference between someone who fails to leave the door locked when going out and one who leaves it open knowing someone be stopping by.” The court also found that the former employer could be held liable through respondeat superior: the actions of the supervisor could be imputed to the company.

Where the defendants scored a minor victory is in their interpretation of “storage”: any emails that the plaintiff had opened but not deleted before the defendant saw them were not being kept “for the purposes of backup protection” and thus were not protected under the SCA.

Accordingly, the court allowed the plaintiff’s SCA claim to proceed.

So, what do you think?  Should the emails have been protected under the SCA?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case Summary Source: Applied Discovery (free subscription required).  For eDiscovery news and best practices, check out the Applied Discovery Blog here.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Want to Make eDiscovery Proportional? Tie it to the Amount at Stake – eDiscovery Trends

Apparently, the effect of the proposed amendments to the discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure approved for public comment may not be limited to just Federal courts.  They also could have a significant effect on New York’s state courts as well.

According to Brendan Pierson in the New York Law Journal (Proposal Would Tie Scope of Discovery to Amount in Controversy), the “most sweeping change would amend Rule 26(b)(1) to require that courts allow discovery that is ‘proportional to the needs of the case considering the amount in controversy, the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.’”  Since New York courts “generally follow” the current federal discovery standard in which any material that could lead to admissible evidence is generally discoverable (regardless of the amount in controversy), the presumption is that they would follow the new standard as well.

If the US system is the “broadest discovery system on the planet” (according to Alvin Lindsay, a Hogan Lovells partner and an expert in discovery issues), the proposed changes would “bring discovery in the United States more in line with the rest of the world”.

The author cites the Zubulake v. UBS Warburg case as a key turning point in the number of documents preserved and produced in litigation and that growing eDiscovery costs have led to a “backlash among practitioners”.  According to experts, the proposed rules changes are “likely to gain broad support”.  “I don’t know who you’re going to get who’s going to oppose the principle of proportionality,” said Paul Sarkozi, a partner at Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt and vice-chair of the commercial litigation section of the New York State Bar Association.

However, one “possible source of opposition could be class action plaintiffs attorneys, who can sometimes benefit from the more extensive discovery available under current rules”.  It will be interesting to see if there is considerable opposition from plaintiffs’ attorneys.  For more in the article, click here.

So, what do you think?  Are you pleased or concerned with the proposed amendments?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Nominate Your Favorite Law Blog – eDiscovery Trends

If you’re reading this, you obviously read law blogs.  If you have a favorite law blog (or “blawg”, get it?), now is the time to nominate it for recognition in the ABA Journal 7th Annual Blawg 100.

On their Blawg 100 Amici page, you can complete the form to identify yourself, your employer or law school, your city and email address, the URL of the blog you wish to nominate, a link to a great 2013 post from the blog and a brief (up to 500 characters) description as to why you’re a fan of the “blawg”.  You’re also asked whether you know the “blawgger” personally (and admonished to “be honest”), whether ABA Journal can use your name and comment in their coverage and, if you follow the blogger on Twitter, describe what makes him/her stand out.  You can nominate more than one “blawg”.

ABA Journal notes that they discourage submissions from:

  • Bloggers who nominate their own blogs or nominate blogs to which they have previously contributed posts.
  • Employees of law firms who nominate blogs written by their co-workers.
  • Public relations professionals in the employ of lawyers or law firms who nominate their clients’ blogs.
  • Pairs of bloggers who have clearly entered into a quid pro quo agreement to nominate each other.

Friend-of-the-blawg briefs (i.e., to fill and submit the form) by no later than Aug. 9, 2013 to include your nomination.

As a person who coordinates a daily blog, I can appreciate what it takes to publish a blog and bring interesting topics to the reader.  So, with that in mind, here are some of the excellent blogs out there that cover various eDiscovery topics:

There’s also this little blog called eDiscoveryDaily, as well.  If you would like to nominate this one, we won’t stop you!  😉

For compilations of eDiscovery news and analysis, I’d also like to recognize Law Technology News, PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest and Complex Discovery as excellent sources for eDiscovery information.

Our hats are off to all of those who provide eDiscovery news and analysis to the industry!  Again, if you would like to nominate any of the blogs (including, of course, eDiscoveryDaily), click here.  Deadline is August 9.

So, what do you think?  Do you have a favorite eDiscovery blog or source of information?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Plaintiffs Take the Supreme Step in Da Silva Moore – eDiscovery Case Law

As mentioned in Law Technology News (‘Da Silva Moore’ Goes to Washington), attorneys representing lead plaintiff Monique Da Silva Moore and five other employees have filed a petition for certiorari filed with the Supreme Court arguing that New York Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck, who approved an eDiscovery protocol agreed to by the parties that included predictive coding technology, should have recused himself given his previous public statements expressing strong support of predictive coding.

Da Silva Moore and her co-plaintiffs argued in the petition that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals was too deferential to Peck when denying the plaintiff’s petition to recuse him, asking the Supreme Court to order the Second Circuit to use the less deferential “de novo” standard.  As noted in the LTN article:

“The employees also cited a circuit split in how appellate courts reviewed judicial recusals, pointing out that the Seventh Circuit reviews disqualification motions de novo. Besides resolving the circuit split, the employees asked the Supreme Court to find that the Second Circuit’s standard was incorrect under the law. Citing federal statute governing judicial recusals, the employees claimed that the law required motions for disqualification to be reviewed objectively and that a deferential standard flew in the face of statutory intent. “Rather than dispelling the appearance of a self-serving judiciary, deferential review exacerbates the appearance of impropriety that arises from judges deciding their own cases and thus undermines the purposes of [the statute],” wrote the employees in their cert petition.”

This battle over predictive coding and Judge Peck’s participation has continued for 15 months.  For a recap of the events during that time, click here.

So, what do you think?  Is this a “hail mary” for the plaintiffs and will it succeed?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Not a Typical Blog Post Today

Since we started eDiscovery Daily back in September 2010, we have yet to miss a scheduled day to publish a blog post.  I’m not sure if today counts, but I feel compelled to talk about my dad.  Please excuse this one day departure from our normal topics.

My dad passed away on the morning of July 4, peacefully, in his sleep.  His name was Doug Austin too.  His funeral is today.  Dad never met a stranger and loved family and friends above all.  He would always tell us “be careful” when we left, even if it was just to go to the store 5 minutes away, and would say “no use to rush off” even if we stayed with him all day.  He loved spending time with family and numerous long-time friends.

He was a talented artist who loved to paint and create stained glass artwork.  All of our family has at least one of his beautiful stained glass pieces and dad typically welcomed each new member of the family with a stained glass piece tailored to them.  He was a great cook and I still prefer his steaks over those of any restaurant.

He had quirky sayings like “I’m still able to take nourishment” and “It’s time to get up and pay for your bed”.  When he farted, he would say “oops, I stepped on a frog”.  When he was really tired, he could snore loud enough to peel the paint off the walls.

He survived over 21 years after quadruple bypass surgery and survived over 2 years after being in the hospital for over three months.  He had congestive heart failure, COPD, kidney issues, lymphoma and a terrific, up-beat attitude that enabled him to not only survive all that for years, but to thrive.  He was always there for those he cared about and truly felt blessed by the love of his Lord Jesus Christ, his family and his friends.

I feel blessed to have had such a terrific father.  Dad, I love you.

Back to typical eDiscovery topics tomorrow, I promise.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Appellate Court Denies Sanctions for Routine Deletion of Text Messages – eDiscovery Case Law

In PTSI, Inc. v. Haley, No. 684 WDA 2012, 2013 Pa. Super. (Pa. Super. Ct. May 24, 2013), the appellate court denied a motion for spoliation sanctions where the defendants routinely deleted text messages and other data to “clean up” their personal electronic devices: the volume of messages and limited amount of phone storage made it difficult to retain all data and still use the phone for messaging.

Here, the plaintiff filed claims of conversion, breach of the duty of loyalty, and breach of fiduciary duty against its former at-will employees and their new competing business. The trial court dismissed all claims at summary judgment. It also denied PTSI’s motion seeking sanctions for spoliation, because the deletion of electronically stored information, including text messages, was not relevant to the summary judgment decision.

During discovery, PTSI filed a motion seeking sanctions based on its two former employees’ deletion of electronic records from their computers and phones, including text messages. The company claimed the information was “vital to the prosecution of this case” and could not be “feasibly reconstructed or retrieved without enormous time and expense to PTSI, if at all.”

Under Pennsylvania law, the court had to evaluate three factors to determine the appropriate sanction: “(1) the degree of fault of the party who altered or destroyed the evidence; (2) the degree of prejudice suffered by the opposing party; and (3) whether there is a lesser sanction that will avoid substantial unfairness to the opposing party and, where the offending party is seriously at fault, will serve to deter such conduct by others in the future.”

To determine the level of fault, the court considered the extent of the duty to preserve the evidence, based on whether litigation is foreseeable and whether the evidence might be prejudicial to the opposing party, and whether the evidence was destroyed in bad faith. The court also considered proportionality in making decisions, including five factors spelled out in the comments to the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure:

  • the nature and scope of the litigation, including the importance and complexity of the issues and the amounts at stake;
  • the relevance of electronically stored information and its importance to the court’s adjudication in the given case;
  • the cost, burden and delay that may be imposed on the parties to deal with electronically stored information;
  • the ease of producing electronically stored information and whether substantially similar information is available with less burden; and
  • any other factors relevant under the circumstances.

Here, the amount in controversy and the importance of the issues involving the data did not support awarding a discovery sanction. Moreover, PTSI could not show that its former employees’ “innocent clean up of personal electronic devices to allow them to function was unusual, unreasonable or improper under the circumstances.” Because the defendants “routinely deleted text messages, often on a daily basis, so as not to unduly encumber their iPhones” and because of “the volume of text messages that are frequently exchanged by cell phone users and the limited amount of storage on cell phones, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to save all text messages and to continue to use the phone for messaging.” Furthermore, the order of preservation was entered well after any relevant data would have already been created and deleted. In addition, similar information was available from other sources and custodians; the forensic examiner in the case unearthed more than 1,000 e-mails from the employees’ computers. Finally, any spoliation inference could not defeat the summary judgment motion.

The appellate court agreed with the trial court’s reasoning and found no abuse of discretion.

So, what do you think?  Should the sanctions have been granted?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case Summary Source: Applied Discovery (free subscription required).  For eDiscovery news and best practices, check out the Applied Discovery Blog here.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Word’s Stupid “Smart Quotes” – Best of eDiscovery Best Practices

Even those of us at eDiscoveryDaily have to take an occasional vacation day; however, instead of “going dark” for today, we thought we would republish a post from the early days of the blog (when we didn’t have many readers yet).  So, chances are, you haven’t seen this post yet!  Enjoy!

I have run into this issue more times than I can count.

A client sends me a list of search terms that they want to use to cull a set of data for review in a Microsoft® Word document.  I copy the terms into the search tool and then, all hell breaks loose!!  Either:

The search indicates there is a syntax error

OR

The search returns some obviously odd results

And, then, I remember…

It’s those stupid Word “smart quotes”.  Starting with Office 2003, Microsoft Word, by default, automatically changes straight quotation marks ( ‘ or ” ) to curly quotes as you type. This is fine for display of a document in Word, but when you copy that text to a format that doesn’t support the smart quotes (such as HTML or a plain text editor), the quotes will show up as garbage characters because they are not supported ASCII characters.  So:

“smart quotes”

will look like this…

âsmart quotesâ

As you can imagine, that doesn’t look so “smart” when you feed it into a search tool and you get odd results (if the search even runs).  So, you’ll need to address those to make sure that the quotes are handled correctly when searching for phrases with your search tool.

To disable the automatic changing of quotes to Microsoft Word smart quotes: Click the Microsoft Office icon button at the top left of Word, and then click the Word Options button to open options for Word.  Click Proofing along the side of the pop-up window, then click AutoCorrect Options.  Click the AutoFormat tab and uncheck the Replace “Smart Quotes” with “Smart Quotes” check box.  Then, click OK.

Often, however, the file you’ve received already has smart quotes in it.  If you’re going to use the terms in that file, you’ll need to copy them to a text editor first – (e.g., Notepad or Wordpad – if Wordpad is in plain text document mode) should be fine.  Highlight the beginning quote and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C), then Ctrl+H to open up the Find and Replace dialog, put your cursor in the Find box and press Ctrl+V to paste it in.  Type the “ character on the keyboard into the Replace box, then press Replace All to replace all beginning smart quotes with straight ones.  Repeat the process for the ending smart quotes.  You’ll also have to do this if you have any single quotes, double-hyphens, fraction characters (e.g., Word converts “1/2” to “½”) that impact your terms.

So, what do you think?  Have you ever run into issues with Word smart quotes or other auto formatting options?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.