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Electronic Discovery

The First 7 to 10 Days May Make or Break Your Case: eDiscovery Best Practices

Having worked with a client recently that was looking for some guidance at the outset of their case, it seemed appropriate to revisit this topic here.

When a case is filed, several activities must be completed within a short period of time (often as soon as the first seven to ten days after filing) to enable you to assess the scope of the case, where the key electronically stored information (ESI) is located and whether to proceed with the case or attempt to settle with opposing counsel. Here are several of the key early activities that can assist in deciding whether to litigate or settle the case.

Activities:

  • Create List of Key Employees Most Likely to have Documents Relevant to the Litigation: To estimate the scope of the case, it’s important to begin to prepare the list of key employees that may have potentially responsive data. Information such as name, title, eMail address, phone number, office location and where information for each is stored on the network is important to be able to proceed quickly when issuing hold notices and collecting their data. Some of these employees may no longer be with your organization, so you may have to determine whether their data is still available and where.
  • Issue Litigation Hold Notice and Track Results: The duty to preserve begins when you anticipate litigation; however, if litigation could not be anticipated prior to the filing of the case, it is certainly clear once the case if filed that the duty to preserve has begun. Hold notices must be issued ASAP to all parties that may have potentially responsive data. Once the hold is issued, you need to track and follow up to ensure compliance. Here are a couple of posts from 2012 regarding issuing hold notices and tracking responses.
  • Interview Key Employees: As quickly as possible, interview key employees to identify potential locations of responsive data in their possession as well as other individuals they can identify that may also have responsive data so that those individuals can receive the hold notice and be interviewed.
  • Interview Key Department Representatives: Certain departments, such as IT, Records or Human Resources, may have specific data responsive to the case. They may also have certain processes in place for regular destruction of “expired” data, so it’s important to interview them to identify potentially responsive sources of data and stop routine destruction of data subject to litigation hold.
  • Inventory Sources and Volume of Potentially Relevant Documents: Potentially responsive data can be located in a variety of sources, including: shared servers, eMail servers, employee workstations, employee home computers, employee mobile devices, portable storage media (including CDs, DVDs and portable hard drives), active paper files, archived paper files and third-party sources (consultants and contractors, including cloud storage providers). Hopefully, the organization already has created a data map before litigation to identify the location of sources of information to facilitate that process. It’s important to get a high level sense of the total population to begin to estimate the effort required for discovery.
  • Plan Data Collection Methodology: Determining how each source of data is to be collected also affects the cost of the litigation. Are you using internal resources, outside counsel or a litigation support vendor? Will the data be collected via an automated collection system or manually? Will employees “self-collect” any of their own data? If so, important data may be missed. Answers to these questions will impact the scope and cost of not only the collection effort, but the entire discovery effort.

These activities can result in creating a data map of potentially responsive information and a “probable cost of discovery” spreadsheet (based on initial estimated scope compared to past cases at the same stage) that will help in determining whether to proceed to litigate the case or attempt to settle with the other side.

So, what do you think? How quickly do you decide whether to litigate or settle? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Payday Loan Company Sanctioned for Discovery Violations: eDiscovery Case Law

In James v. National Financial LLC, C.A. 8931-VCL (Del Ch. Dec. 5,2014), Delaware Vice Chancellor Laster granted the plaintiff’s motion for sanctions after determining that the defendant’s “discovery misconduct calls for serious measures”. However, the plaintiff’s request for a default judgment was not granted, but lesser sanctions that included attorneys’ fees and a ruling that the lack of information contained in the requested document resulted in an admission.

Case Summary

On May 7, 2013, the plaintiff borrowed $200 from the defendant, which does business in multiple locations in Delaware under the name Loan Till Payday LLC. The plaintiff needed the $200 to pay for rent and groceries. The loan agreement, which consisted primarily of boilerplate provisions, imposed onerous terms. It contemplated twenty-six bi-weekly payments of $60 with a final balloon payment of $260. The total repayments added up to $1,620, for a cost of credit of $1,420 and an APR of 838.45%. Yikes. The standard loan agreement signed by the plaintiff gave her sixty days after signing the agreement to opt out of the mandatory arbitration provision, which she did and filed a verified class action complaint against the defendant, claiming unconscionable lending practices.

During discovery, the plaintiff asked the defendant to provide information about loans it made, including the annual percentage rates (“APRs”). After the defendant moved for a protective order, the court ordered the defendant to produce certain categories of information, including the APRs. The defendant produced a spreadsheet containing some of the categories but not others. When the plaintiff checked the APRs against the few loan documents she had, they differed and the defendant’s principal ultimately agreed that the data contained errors. The court ordered the defendant to produce an updated spreadsheet (which they did) and an affidavit from an IT consultant attesting to the procedures used to populate the spreadsheet (which they did not), and the spreadsheet omitted information required by the court’s order. As a result, the plaintiff moved for default judgment sanctions against the defendant.

Court Ruling

Noting that “[t]he court expects Delaware counsel to play an active role in the discovery process, including in the collection, review and production of documents”, Vice Chancellor Laster granted the plaintiff’s motion for sanctions, but not the requested default judgment sanctions, stating that “National’s discovery misconduct calls for serious measures. Although I believe that entry of a default judgment would be warranted on these facts, I will not grant that remedy in light of the Delaware Supreme Court’s guidance about invoking the ultimate sanction and the availability of less punitive consequences.” Instead, the Vice Chancellor awarded attorneys’ fees and ruled that the lack of information contained in the requested document resulted in an admission.

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

Click here to see our previous story about the Delaware Court of Chancery amending its Rules regarding discovery two years ago.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

DESI Wants Your Input! – eDiscovery Trends

It’s not Desi Arnaz who wants it, but the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (DESI) VI workshop, which is being held at the University of San Diego on June 8 as part of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (ICAIL 2015).

The DESI VI workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore innovation and the development of best practices for application of search, classification, language processing, data management, visualization, and related techniques to institutional and organizational records in eDiscovery, information governance, public records access, and other legal settings. Ideally, the aim of the DESI workshop series has been to foster a continuing dialogue leading to the adoption of further best practice guidelines or standards in using machine learning, most notably in the eDiscovery space. Organizing committee members include Jason R. Baron of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Douglas W. Oard of the University of Maryland.

Previous DESI workshops were held in places like Palo Alto, London, Barcelona, Rome and Pittsburgh (maybe not as exciting as the other locales, but they don’t have six Super Bowl championships 🙂 ).

DESI VI invites “refereed” papers (due by April 10 and limited to 4-10 pages) describing research or practice. After peer review, accepted papers will be posted on the DESI VI website and distributed to workshop participants. Authors of accepted refereed papers will be invited to present their work either as an oral or a poster presentation. They also invite “unrefereed” position papers (due by May 1and typically 2-3 pages) describing individual interests for inclusion (without review) on the DESI VI Web site and distribution to workshop participants.  Submissions should be sent by email to Doug Oard (oard@umd.edu) with the subject line DESI VI POSITION PAPER or DESI VI RESEARCH PAPER. All submissions received will be acknowledged within 3 days.

Participation in the DESI VI workshop is open. Submission of papers is encouraged, but not required.

For more information about the workshop, click the Call for Submissions here (or here for the PDF version). The Call for Submissions also includes a References section which includes papers and cases useful as background reading for the focus of the workshop – even if you don’t plan to go, it’s a good list to check out. I’m happy to say that most of the cases on the list have been covered by this blog (including Da Silva Moore, EORHB v. HOA Holdings, Global Aerospace Inc., et al. v. Landow Aviation, L.P. and others.

So, what do you think? Are you going to attend? Submit a paper? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

New California eDiscovery Competence Proposed Opinion Has Been Revised – eDiscovery Trends

Last April, we reported on a new proposed opinion in California that required that attorneys in that state better be sufficiently skilled in eDiscovery, hire technical consultants or competent counsel that is sufficiently skilled, or decline representation in cases where eDiscovery is required. Now, that opinion has been revised and the comment period has been reset.

The California State Bar Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility & Conduct has released a new version of the Proposed Formal Opinion Interim No. 11-0004, which is designed to establish an attorney’s ethical duties in the handling of discovery of electronically stored information. Now, the first page of the opinion states:

“An attorney’s obligations under the ethical duty of competence evolve as new technologies develop and become integrated with the practice of law. Attorney competence related to litigation generally requires, among other things, and at a minimum, a basic understanding of, and facility with, issues relating to e-discovery, including the discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”). On a case-by-case basis, the duty of competence may require a higher level of technical knowledge and ability, depending on the e-discovery issues involved in a matter, and the nature of the ESI. Competency may require even a highly experienced attorney to seek assistance in some litigation matters involving ESI. An attorney lacking the required competence for e-discovery issues has three options: (1) acquire sufficient learning and skill before performance is required; (2) associate with or consult technical consultants or competent counsel; or (3) decline the client representation. Lack of competence in e-discovery issues also may lead to an ethical violation of an attorney’s duty of confidentiality.”

The proposed ethics opinion still includes the hypothetical situation discussed in the original version in which a lawyer agrees to opposing counsel’s search of his client’s database using agreed-upon terms with that lawyer mistakenly thinking that a clawback agreement offered by opposing counsel is broader than it is, and will allow him to pull back anything, not just protected ESI, so long as he asserts it was “inadvertently” produced. The remainder of the proposed opinion discusses the attorney’s duties regarding ESI, including the duty of competence and the duty of confidentiality.

The clock is reset and the committee is requesting comments on the revised opinion now through April 9 (by 5pm Pacific time). For more information and where to direct comments, click here.

So, what do you think? Will other states adopt similar ethics opinions? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Expanded Sources of ESI May Leave You “Fit” to be Tied – eDiscovery Trends

One of the items that I bought my wife for Christmas (which she really wanted) was an UP 24™ Fitness Tracker, which is a wristband that tracks a variety of fitness metrics, including steps taken, workouts logged and calories burned (not to mention sleep cycles) and enables you to share and compare your stats with your friends via an app on your mobile device. Another example of a similar device is a Fitbit®. Based on a recent case, these devices are just another example of new devices from which relevant ESI may be collected for discovery.

In the recent Forbes article (Fitbit Data Now Being Used In The Courtroom, written by Parmy Olson), a law firm in Calgary is working on the first known personal injury case that will use activity data from a Fitbit to help show the effects of an accident on their client.

As the article notes, “The young woman in question was injured in an accident four years ago. Back then, Fitbits weren’t even on the market, but given that she was a personal trainer, her lawyers at McLeod Law believe they can say with confidence that she led an active lifestyle. A week from now, they will start processing data from her Fitbit to show that her activity levels are now under a baseline for someone of her age and profession.

It will ‘back up what she’s been saying,’ says her lawyer, Simon Muller of McLeod Law.

The lawyers aren’t using Fitbit’s data directly, but pumping it through analytics platform Vivametrica, which uses public research to compare a person’s activity data with that of the general population.”

More and more, everyday objects are able to connect to the Internet and these devices are gathering, sending and receiving data. Glasses, fitness wristbands, even your thermostat is sending and receiving data. On one hand, the “Internet of Things” is making our lives easier by enabling us to access more information than ever, but, it also increases data security and privacy risks, not to mention potentially complicates discovery from an information governance, collection and preservation standpoint. Now, in certain types of cases, we may need to collect or request data from devices never before considered as discoverable.

So, what do you think? What’s the most unusual device that you have ever had to collect potentially responsive ESI? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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 Orders Defendant to Submit Further Declaration after Plaintiff Disputes its Claimed eDiscovery Costs – eDiscovery Case Law

In Bonillas v. United Air Lines Inc., No. C-12-06574(EDL) (N.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 2014), California Chief Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte ordered the defendant to submit a further declaration supporting its claimed eDiscovery costs by addressing several issues raised by no later than January 5, 2015, with the plaintiff having until January 8, 2015 to submit a brief response to the further declaration if he chose to do so.

Case Background

The plaintiff sued the defendant for race and disability discrimination and retaliation. On August 19, 2014, the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment was granted (with the plaintiff appealing the decision to the Ninth Circuit). After the summary judgment was granted, the defendant filed a Bill of Costs seeking $63,302.19 in costs as the prevailing party. The Clerk of Court reduced the amounts sought, awarding $50,617.61. The plaintiff then filed a Motion for Review of the Clerk’s Taxation of Costs and the trial judge referred the motion to Judge LaPorte’s Court for a Report and Recommendation. Judge LaPorte held a hearing on the matter on November 18, during which she requested a supplemental declaration from Defendant on the issue of which electronic discovery costs contained in the invoices are properly taxable, and allowed Plaintiff time to respond.

During oral argument, Judge LaPorte directed the parties to recent case law analyzing § 1920 as it applies to various categories of eDiscovery tasks and required further documentation from the parties. The defendant submitted a supplemental Declaration which reduced the defendant’s claimed ESI-related costs to $19,786.30, referencing CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc. The defendant claimed it “omitted approximately $13,886.65 in costs associated with de-duplicating, de-Nisting, culling extracted files using search terms, database and project management tasks, monthly hosting and licensing fees, and fees incurred for copying ESI onto backup media following production.”

The plaintiff responded that the reduced amount was “still too high” because, unlike the detailed ESI production process agreed to by the parties in CBT Flint Partners, here the parties “had no agreement as to format and Plaintiff made no request for documents to be produced in a particular format”. So the plaintiff argued that “all costs for file extraction and conversion were unnecessary and for the convenience of Defendant’s counsel”, contending that the defendant “should have simply copied responsive files to a storage device in the format in which they were ordinarily kept and provided that storage device to Plaintiff”.

Judge’s Ruling

Judge LaPorte agreed with the plaintiff that, “absent an agreement or rule governing the format of ESI production, Defendant’s recoverable costs are generally limited to those incurred during the third phase of its ESI production process, such as [the defendant’s eDiscovery provider] Blackstone’s assistance with document production including PDF conversion, Bates numbering, and loading the final production onto a secure FTP site for download.” However, she noted, “some preliminary tasks necessary to make the information readable may also be compensable.”

As a result, Judge LaPorte ordered the defendant to submit a further declaration of costs by January 5 to provide:

  • A breakdown of PDF conversion costs to detail what file and metadata costs were necessary to produce reasonably usable copies (as opposed to costs incurred for the defendant’s convenience to filter, search and review its own files prior to production),
  • A breakdown of which load files were created to separate electronic documents for production to the plaintiff (as opposed to those prepared for loading documents into the defendant’s review database), and
  • Support whether the “processing costs” incurred by the defendant were for the smaller subset of produced documents (as opposed to all documents reviewed).

So, what do you think? Should eDiscovery costs be recoverable in cases where the losing party did not request the documents in a particular format? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Three “C”s, Cowboys, Cannibals and Craig (Ball) – eDiscovery Best Practices

They say that a joke is only old if you haven’t heard it before. In that vein, an article about eDiscovery is only old if you haven’t read it before. Craig Ball is currently revisiting some topics that he covered ten years ago with an updated look, making them appropriate for 1) people who weren’t working in eDiscovery ten years ago (which is probably a lot of you), 2) people who haven’t read the articles previously and 3) people who have read the articles previously, but haven’t seen his updated takes.  In other words, everybody.

So far, Craig has published three revisited articles to his terrific Ball in your court blog. They are:

Starting Over, which sets the stage for the series, and covers The DNA of Data, which was the very first Ball in your court (when it was still in print form). This article discusses how electronic evidence isn’t going away and claims of inaccessible data and how technological advances have rendered claims of inaccessibility mostly moot.

Unclear on the Concept (originally published in Law Technology News in May of 2005), which discusses some of the challenges of early concept searching and related tools (when terms like “predictive coding” and “technology assisted review” hadn’t even entered our lexicon yet). Craig also pokes fun at himself for noting back then how he read Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Joyce Carol Oates in grade school. 🙂

Cowboys and Cannibals (originally published in Law Technology News in June of 2005), which discusses the need for a new email “sheriff” in town (not to be confused with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola in this case) to classify emails for easier retrieval. Back then, we didn’t know just how big the challenge of Information Governance would become. His updated take concludes as follows:

“What optimism exists springs from the hope that we will move from the Wild West to Westworld, that Michael Crichton-conceived utopia where robots are gunslingers. The technology behind predictive coding will one day be baked into our IT apps, and much as it serves to protect us from spam today, it will organize our ESI in the future.”

That day is coming, hopefully sooner rather than later. And, you have to love a blog post that references Westworld, which was a terrific story and movie back in the 70s (wonder why nobody has remade that one yet?).

eDiscovery Daily has revisited topics several times as well, especially some of the topics we covered in the early days of the blog, when we didn’t have near as many followers yet. It’s new if you haven’t read it, right? I look forward to future posts in Craig’s series.

So, what do you think? How long have you been reading articles about eDiscovery? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image © Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

EDRM Publishes Clarification to its Model Code of Conduct – eDiscovery Trends

Yesterday, we discussed an update to the Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary from The Sedona Conference®. Today, another titan of eDiscovery standards and best practices, EDRM, has an update of its own.

The EDRM Model Code of Conduct (MCoC) (previously covered by this blog here and here) focuses on the ethical duties of service providers associated with five key principles and also provides a corollary for each principle to illustrate ethical duties of their clients. Yesterday, EDRM announced a proposed clarification to the language in Principle 3 – Conflicts of Interest of the MCoC as well as a clarification to the language in the corollary to Principle 3.

As noted in their press release, the “clarification distinguishes between (a) entities that are “members of the team,” i.e., participants in shaping legal strategy; and (b) technology providers that, while delivering capabilities to the team, are not on the team; i.e., they are not privy to or helping to shape case strategy. Principle 3 of the MCoC is intended to apply to the former, not the latter.”

The revised Principle 3 now reads:

“When (a) a Service Provider is engaged primarily to provide consulting services in connection with the broad range of activities covered by the EDRM and (b) as a material part of that engagement the Service Provider receives information about case strategy or assists in developing case strategy, then the Service Provider should employ reasonable proactive measures to identify potential conflicts of interest, as defined and discussed below. In the event that an actual or potential conflict of interest is identified, the Service Provider should disclose any such conflict and take immediate steps to resolve it in accordance with the Guidelines set forth below.”

The revised corollary to Principle 3 now reads:

“Clients should furnish Service Providers subject to Principle 3 with sufficient information at the commencement of each engagement to enable each Service Provider to identify potential conflicts of interest. If an actual or potential conflict of interest is identified and disclosed and the Client elects to proceed with the engagement, the Client should work in good faith with the Service Provider and other parties to facilitate a resolution to any such conflict in accordance with the Guidelines set forth below.”

You can read the full code, download it, comment on the proposed changes or subscribe to the code here. You can also see all the subscribing organizations and individuals (CloudNine has been a subscriber to the MCoC since it was officially released in 2012).

So, what do you think? Is this a necessary revision to the code? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Sedona Conference Updates Guide for Judges Again – eDiscovery Trends

In 2011, The Sedona Conference® made a public comments version of the Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary available on the Sedona Conference website. As the Preface states, “The Resources are intended to aid State and federal judges in the management of electronically stored information (“ESI”) in civil actions for which the judges are responsible”. In 2012, the Resources guide was updated. Last month, the Resources guide was updated again and the free version is available on the Sedona Conference web site.

As noted in the Preface, “Whatever the judge’s role, the Resources offer a framework for the management of ESI. This December 2014 edition expands that framework and again focuses on the “stages of litigation from the judge’s perspective,” starting with the preservation of ESI through the initial case management order (whatever that may be called in a specific jurisdiction), the resolution of discovery disputes, trial, and post-trial awards of costs.”

Also new is updated case law and other sources of information. And articles that have not been peer-reviewed, but “which are noteworthy in the opinion of the Senior Editors”, have been included in a new “Addendum.” Finally, this December 2014 edition also “includes a new, separate section on judicial ethics in the context of ESI and presents timely matters for judges to consider.” As noted in the Preface, “The Senior Editors trust that this new section will be the beginning of what will be a continuing—and evolving—dialogue on judicial ethics in the ‘Age of the Internet.’”

In addition to the Preface, the guide includes the same four sections as the 2012 version (Introduction, Review of Existing Literature on E-Discovery for Judges, General Recommendations for Judges and The Stages of Litigation from a Judge’s Perspective), as well as the new ESI-Related Ethics for Judges section and the aforementioned new Addendum.

Once again, creation of the new edition was led by senior editors Ronald Hedges and Kenneth Withers with Karen Van Allen once again serving as editorial coordinator. Judicial Reviewers were:

  • Hon. Gill S. Freeman, Circuit Judge, 11th Judicial Circuit Court, Florida
  • Hon. Elizabeth M. Schwabedissen, General Magistrate, 11th Judicial Circuit Court, Florida
  • Hon. Craig B. Shaffer, U.S. Magistrate Judge, District of Colorado
  • Hon. Thomas J. Shields, U.S. Magistrate Judge, Southern District of Iowa
  • Hon. Stephen J. Smith, Administrative Law Judge, State of California

All three versions of the Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary are available here. You’ll have to provide your information to download, but that will get you added to the Sedona Conference email announcement list, which is always a good thing.  You can submit comments or proposed changes by emailing to the co-editors at kjw@sedonaconference.org or r_hedges@live.com.

So, what do you think? Is this an improved guide over the one from two years ago? 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. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Notice Anything Different? – eDiscovery Redesign

Besides the fact that this is a rare Saturday post for us?

If you’re an email subscriber to eDiscovery Daily, you may have noticed something different in the past few days – a new design for the blog!

After nearly 4 1/2 years and over 1,075 posts, we decided it’s time to freshen our look. So, our new site has a fresher look, larger fonts for easier reading of the posts, even a new logo! We hope you like it!

Yet, while updating the look, we’ve maintained the overall layout to preserve the easy ability to look up topics by category or by month and we’ve preserved the search box to enable you to search for any topic you desire to find. Most importantly, we’ve preserved the entire catalog of posts so that the entire knowledge base that we have built over the last 4+ years is still available. During that time, we have covered about 250 distinct cases that relate to eDiscovery issues, so the case law knowledge base is significant. Yet, our case law library is less than 40% of our overall content, so we’ve covered much more in terms of trends, best practices and anything else worth discussing from an eDiscovery standpoint. It’s all still there for you.

And, we plan to continue covering these topics with a new post each business day. That’s what we do.

Our “opening” this week was a “soft” one as we were working on redirects for all of the existing pages (takes a while when there are over 1,000 of them) while switching our email “feed” over to the new site. We believe that we have the redirects all addressed, so consider this an “official” opening of the new site! However, because there are so many pages on the site, we may have slipped up here or there. So, if you see a page that has formatting issues or missing images or get a “404 – Page Not Found” error when trying to navigate to a particular page, please feel free to drop me a line at daustin@cloudnincloudnine.comm and let me know about it. I would appreciate it.

Onward to new topics on Monday! Have a great weekend!

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine 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.