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Electronic Discovery

Defendant Requests Terminating Sanctions for Plaintiff, but Court Opts for Lesser Sanctions: eDiscovery Case Law

In Applied Underwriters, Inc. v. American Employer Group, No. 14-00379 (E.D. Tenn., May 2, 2016), Tennessee Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley, Jr., ruling on several motions, granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion for sanctions, agreeing that the plaintiff’s numerous discovery deficiencies warranted sanctions, but not the dismissal that the defendant requested, opting instead to require the plaintiff to pay attorney’s fees for filing the motion.

Case Background

In this case which involved numerous discovery disputes, the defendant asserted that the plaintiff failed to comply with the Court’s discovery Orders, failed to follow the procedures set forth in the parties’ discovery plan, failed to follow the directives of the Court’s Protective Order, failed to follow the requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and failed to confer in good faith about discovery issues, arguing that the plaintiff produced a classic “document dump” when it produced its ESI.  At a hearing regarding the case, the defendant identified eleven deficiencies with the plaintiff’s production, including:

  1. failing to search for the agreed upon terms in creating the collective universe;
  2. failing to search the computer systems of several individuals that were agreed upon;
  3. failing to review the documents before producing;
  4. producing the documents out of order, without attachments, and without proper load files;
  5. failing to apply proper Bates stamps to some of the ESI;
  6. producing all four million pages with the “Attorney Eyes Only” designation;
  7. failing to produce the ESI in the format indicated in the parties agreement pursuant to the Rule 26(f) Report;
  8. submitting the document production without extracted OCR text and load files;
  9. producing ESI duplicative of that produced in previous discovery;
  10. producing “a number of folders, sub-folders, and sub-sub level folders with file names that do not make sense”; and
  11. not providing a spreadsheet to explain which documents are relevant to which request contrary to the parties’ agreement.

Other than that, the plaintiff’s document production was perfect… :o)

The defendant requested that the Court dismiss the lawsuit, or in the alternative, stay the case until the plaintiff obeyed the Court’s Orders and fully complied with its discovery obligations, also requesting an award to compensate it for the fees and costs it incurred in responding to and overcoming the Plaintiff’s discovery misconduct and its fees and costs associated with re-taking depositions.

Judge’s Ruling

Regarding the plaintiff’s production after they asked for additional time to produce the ESI requested, Judge Shirley stated that “contrary to the parties’ agreement and the Court’s Order, the Plaintiff did not perform the additional searches per the protocols discussed, i.e., performing searches on specifically named individuals’ computers. Moreover, when the March 8 discovery was produced, it was contrary to the plan set forth in the Rule 26(f) Report, it was unorganized, it failed to identify which document request it was answering, and it was all produced “Attorney’s Eyes Only.” Accordingly, the Court finds that sanctions are appropriate.”

Shirley, you can’t be serious!

However, Judge Shirley stopped short of ordering the harsh sanction of dismissal, stating “[w]hile the Court finds that sanctions are appropriate, the Court does not find that Plaintiff’s deficiencies warrant dismissal…As discussed at the hearing, instead of dismissal, the Court finds that the Plaintiff shall pay for the reasonable attorney’s fees and costs associated with the Defendant’s Motion for Sanctions, including the other Motions and filings that relate to the Plaintiff’s discovery deficiencies.”  Judge Shirley also ordered the plaintiff to pay “for the reasonable expenses, not to include attorney’s fees, for retaking” several depositions, including the plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) witness’s depositions.

So, what do you think?  Were those sanctions sufficient?  How does Judge Shirley respond when somebody tells him “surely, you can’t be serious”?  (Seriously, I want to know).  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Defendant Ordered to Issue Litigation Hold, Respond to Discovery Requests: eDiscovery Case Law

In Bruner v. American Honda Motor Co., No. 1:15-00499-N (S.D.Ala. May 12, 2016), Alabama Magistrate Judge Katherine P. Nelson granted the plaintiffs’ motion to compel response to discovery requests for email, to perform additional searches, and to implement a litigation hold on the email accounts for relevant individuals to the case.

Case Background

In this case stemming from an accident involving a 2007 Honda Civic, the plaintiffs alleged a number of counts, including negligence, wantonness, loss of consortium, and manufacturer’s liability claims.  The parties had a dispute regarding the production of emails in response to the plaintiffs’ requests for production and whether Defendant or its counsel should issue a litigation hold in this action.  Counsel for the defendant claimed that any relevant e-mails were “no longer retained due to the passage of time in accordance with the relevant Document Retention Policy(ies)” and also contended that it had conducted thorough searches of customer complaints and related email in response to the requests for production and found no responsive e-mails, claiming that additional searches or implementation of a litigation hold would be unnecessarily burdensome.

The plaintiffs argued that further searches should be conducted to discover and identify any responsive e-mails, stating that the searches of one particular customer database could not be accurate since it references e-mails which it does not include or attach.  The plaintiffs also argued that the defendant’s retention policy is either “in violation of [Defendant’s] duty to preserve ESI, or [Defendant] is not conducting a thorough search.”  The plaintiffs filed a motion to compel the defendant “to conduct a thorough search of identified custodians with identified search terms and to issue a litigation hold in this case” as well as to direct the defendant to implement a litigation hold so that it is not continuously deleting any relevant e-mails.

Judge’s Ruling

Citing Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, Judge Nelson noted that “[o]nce a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must suspend its routine document retention/destruction policy and put in place a ‘litigation hold’ to ensure the preservation of relevant documents”.  With regard to this case, she stated:

“The deletion of potentially relevant emails since the instigation of this action is unreasonable considering their potential importance to this litigation. Additionally, the deletion of some responsive emails does not absolve Defendant of its obligation to thoroughly search for still-extant ESI.”

As a result, Judge Nelson concurred with the plaintiffs that a litigation hold is necessary to preserve ESI and ordered the defendant “to serve Plaintiffs with full and adequate responses” to disputed requests for production “utilizing Plaintiffs’ requested search terms” and also ordered the defendant “to implement a litigation hold on the email accounts of any designer, engineer, customer service representative, or other employee who may possess any responsive non-privileged email. Said litigation hold will remain in place at least until the close of discovery.”

So, what do you think?  Should parties be sanctioned for failing to implement a litigation hold?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Just a reminder that today is our webinar titled Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery hosted by the Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP)!  Click here for more information or click here to register! Hope you can make it!

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Live Webinar Tomorrow! How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery: eDiscovery Trends

I’ve spoken a number of times about how automation is revolutionizing eDiscovery over the past few months, but tomorrow, you get an opportunity to see eDiscovery automation in action!

Tomorrow, Rob Robinson, legal technologist and author of the Complex Discovery blog, and I will be conducting a special webinar titled Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery.  This 60-minute presentation and discussion hosted by the Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) is designed to inform and educate attendees on topics such as:

  • How eDiscovery Technologies Have Evolved Over the Years
  • How to Compare Technology Providers in the eDiscovery Market
  • What You Need to Know about Today’s eDiscovery Automation Technologies

Our presentation will provide an overview of the evolution of electronic discovery technologies and we will also share with ways that you can consider and compare technology offerings from the large ecosystem of providers supporting litigation, investigations, and audits. Our webinar will also include an overview of the attributes of fourth generation eDiscovery automation technology as well as a short demonstration on an eDiscovery automation platform.

Key questions we plan to answer during the presentation include:

  • How do I categorize and compare the different types of technologies and providers in the field of eDiscovery?
  • What is eDiscovery automation and what eDiscovery tasks can be automated?
  • How is eDiscovery automation being used in litigation, investigations, and audits?

It’s not too late to register for tomorrow’s webinar!  Here is the link to register.  Hope you can make it!  We will do our best to make it educational!

So, what do you think?  Do you think that automation is revolutionizing eDiscovery?  Whether you do or not, feel free to join us tomorrow!  And, as always, 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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

The Sedona Conference Has Finalized its Cross-Border Discovery Guide: eDiscovery Best Practices

Nearly nine months after releasing a new publication for public comment to provide guidance for the cross-border data transfer and discovery challenges that many organizations and in-house counsel regularly confront, The Sedona Conference® Working Group 6 on International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure (WG6) has released its final version of that guide.

WG6 – the Working Group responsible for The Sedona Conference International Principles on Discovery, Disclosure and Data Protection (“International Litigation Principles”), has released the final version of the new guide titled Practical In-House Approaches for Cross-Border Discovery and Data Protection (“Practical Approaches”).  The original plan was to open the guide for public comment for a 3 month period through December 15, 2015 and then publish the “final” version early this year.

Of course, a lot has happened since then.

In early October, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) ruled that the safe harbor pact enabling transatlantic data transfers between the U.S. and European Union should be struck down, agreeing with its top legal adviser in finding that the deal fails to provide an adequate level of protection for EU citizens’ data.

Then, in early February, an important new framework, intended to protect the fundamental rights of Europeans where their data is transferred to the United States and ensure legal certainty for businesses, was agreed upon – the EU-US Privacy Shield.  Within the same month, the European Commission released details on that new trans-Atlantic data transfer arrangement.

Interestingly enough, I find no mention of the safe harbor pact having been struck down and only two brief references to privacy shield certification within the final publication.  Hmmm.

The 50 page final guide (which includes extensive appendices) includes the following sections:

  • In-House Perspectives on Discovery and Data Protection: Describes the differing notions of privacy and discovery that exist around the world today;
  • The Sedona Conference International Principles on Discovery, Disclosure & Data Protection: Recap of the six international principles originally introduced in the International Litigation Principles Guide;
  • Practice Points for Conducting Cross-Border Discovery in View of Data Protection and Data Privacy Regulations: Eight detailed practice points, each that provide a hypothetical situation, for addressing everything from the need to proceed deliberately in countries with comprehensive Data Protection Laws to releasing legal holds and return or dispose of data promptly upon termination of a matter;
  • Practical Approaches Appendices: The Sedona Conference In-House Tool Kit for Data Protection and Cross-Border Discovery: A handful of useful documents that include an 20 page eDiscovery and Data Protection Model Guideline (which includes answers to FAQs), a Template Cross-Border Discovery Management Form for In-House eDiscovery Teams, a one page Talking Points Infographic for Internal Business Clients and Employees and an Exemplar Heat Map of Data Protection and Data Privacy Regulations.

The PDF guide can be downloaded here.  As always, it’s free!

In its email announcing the final Practical Applications guide, The Sedona Conference also stated that a WG6 drafting team “has been working on a complementary publication, International Principles for Addressing Data Protection in Cross-Border Government & Internal Investigations: Principles, Commentary & Best Practices”, which “will be posted on the Sedona Conference web site for public comment in mid-June”.  So, we have another guide to look forward to soon!

So, what do you think?  Does your organization struggle with cross-border discovery?  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Virginia Politician’s Screen Grab Shows Porn Sites in Browser, He Gives ‘Testy’ Response: eDiscovery Trends

At least once a year, I like to cover a “social media gone wrong” story to remind us how careful we all need to be when communicating via social media.  This latest one illustrates that point quite well.

According to Gawker (Close Your Porn Tabs Before Posting Screenshots to Your Congressional Campaign Page, written by Ashley Feinberg) and numerous other sources, Virginia politician Mike Webb is running for Congressman in Virginia’s 8th District. On his Facebook page, he recently posted about Curzon Staffing Agency and how his difficulties in pursuing a job related to his decision to run for office.  He even posted a picture of a Yahoo search he “screen captured” regarding the staffing agency to his “Mike Webb for Congress” Facebook account.

Only one problem – he forgot to close his porn tabs first.

Right there, plain as day, are two tabs, one for “IVONE SEXY AMATEUR” and another partially displayed title – “LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BO” (which Gawker has determined is a film called “LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BOOTY”, after a little research).  I’ll take their word for it.

The post was on his page for over six hours before finally being taken down.  Webb later posted a lengthy follow-up post that attempted to explain the extraneous tabs on the previous post that began this way:

“Curious by nature, I wanted to test the suggestion that somehow, lurking out in the pornographic world there is some evil operator waiting for the one in a gazillion chance that a candidate for federal office would go to that particular website and thereby be infected with a virus that would cause his or her FEC data file to crash the FECfile application each time that it was loaded on the day of the filing deadline, as well as impact other critical campaign systems.”

I think we can all agree he is curious by nature.

Let’s face it, whether you’re the former social media manager of an NBA team, an NFL running back or the daughter of a laid off school administrator who tells the world on Facebook to “SUCK IT” after her father wins an $80,000 discrimination settlement, voiding the confidentiality agreement associated with the settlement (and, therefore, the settlement itself), it pays to think before you hit send.  Just ask Anthony Weiner.  Hey, at least he made it to Congress before the gaffe that undid his career… :o)

So, what do you think?  Do you know any good “social media fail” stories?  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Confidence in eDiscovery Business is Still Strong: eDiscovery Trends

The results are in from Rob Robinson’s Spring 2016 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey, which he conducted last month and the results are published on his terrific Complex Discovery site.  Are individuals working in the eDiscovery ecosystem still as confident in the business as they were in the first quarter?  Let’s see.

This time, there were 76 total respondents to the survey, which is almost the same number of respondents as the first survey back in February.  Here are some notable results:

  • Providers Were Still the Majority Respondents, But Not as Much: Of the types of respondents, 47 out of 76 were either Software and/or Services Provider (39.5%) or Consultancy (22.4%) for a total of 61.9% of respondents as some sort of outsourced provider (down from 68.8% last time). Law firm respondents were actually the second most represented group with 23.7%.
  • Even More Respondents Consider Business to Be Good: Over 60% (61.8%, to be exact) of respondents rated the current general business conditions for eDiscovery in their segment to be good, with only 3.9% rating business conditions as bad. Last time, those numbers were 58.8% and 10% respectively.
  • Almost Everyone Expects eDiscovery Business to be as Good or Better Six Months From Now: Almost all respondents (97.3%) expect business conditions will be in their segment to be the same or better six months from now, with 57.9% of respondents expecting higher revenue six months from now and 51.3% of respondents expecting higher profits six months from now. Only the revenue percentage shows a slight drop from the last survey (that time, 60% of respondents expected higher revenue in six months).
  • Budgetary Constraints and Increasing Volumes of Data are Expected to be Most Impact eDiscovery Business: A couple of issues that you feel will most impact the business of eDiscovery over the next six months swapped rankings. Budgetary Constraints (28.9%) still led the way, this time closely followed by Increasing Volumes of Data (26.3%), with Data Security (15.8%) dropping to third, Lack of Personnel (13.2%), Increasing Types of Data (10.5%) and finally, Inadequate Technology (5.3%), rounding out the field.  With recent stories such as the resolution of the Apple v FBI dispute (at least temporarily), the Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report and the “Panama Papers”, I was surprised that Data Security actually went down in the rankings.  The graph below illustrates the distribution.

Rob has published the results on his site here, which shows responses to additional questions not referenced here.  Check it out.  It will be interesting to see how these numbers trend over time.

So, what do you think?  What’s your state of confidence in the business of eDiscovery?  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily 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 Limits Scope of Search Terms Requested by Plaintiff: eDiscovery Case Law

In AVM Technologies, LLC v. Intel Corp., No. 15-00033 (D. Delaware, May 3, 2016), Delaware Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge granted in part the plaintiff’s request for the defendant to perform a database search of four terms and their synonyms, but limited the scope of that search to one specific defendant database, not the variety of sources requested by the plaintiff to be searched.

Case Background

In this patent infringement case where the plaintiff sued the defendant in connection with four of the defendant’s processors that the plaintiff alleged infringed upon its patent, a telephonic hearing was held in January 2016 to address a number of discovery issues.  One issue that they could not resolve was the plaintiff’s request for a database search by the defendant of the following terms: charge sharing, power race, contention and short circuits and their synonyms, which was opposed by the defendant.

Because the defendant indicated that circuits in its earlier products are the same as the circuits accused, the plaintiff argued it should not be limited to documents on which the defendant intended to rely, even though the plaintiff admitted its request would require a search from 1995 to the present and would include products that predate the patent-in-suit and are not accused of infringement.  The defendant indicated that it would take a “massive effort” required to complete the plaintiff’s requested search, indicating that it does not maintain a single or central document repository or index of its many different document repositories, does not have a single “standard” set of processor design documents nor a comprehensive text-searchable database for prior products.  However, the defendant did offer to search one database that “contains only the highest level documents relevant to a product”, indicating that it was transferring potentially searchable contents of this database to a search capable platform to perform the keyword searches requested and was working to complete this process shortly.

Judge’s Ruling

Judge Thynge stated that “Nothing in AVM’s arguments suggest why the production by Intel to date is inadequate, such as how or what in that production indicates that Intel has culled or selected documents that only or primarily support its position on liability.  AVM’s contention that it is only requesting that Intel conduct a text search of the locations most likely to have relevant information is unpersuasive and does not address the significant concerns identified by Intel”, indicating that the plaintiff’s request “ignores the required balancing considerations under proportionality for discovery”.  Judge Thynge also indicated that she did not “find the four identified terms narrow as suggested by AVM and likely will result in numerous irrelevant documents.”

As a result, because the defendant offered to search one database for the four terms and synonyms, Judge Thynge ordered the defendant to “perform what is reasonably necessary to enable keyword searches” of that database for the four terms “and additional, limited synonyms for these terms of up to 12 total, as agreed to by the parties. If the parties cannot agree on the synonyms, they are to advise the court.”

So, what do you think?  Was the court correct to limit the scope of the plaintiff’s searches?  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Google Beats Oracle (Again): eDiscovery Trends

In a litigation that has been going on since 2010 (we started covering it in 2011), a federal jury concluded last Thursday that Google’s Android operating system does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by “fair use.”

As reported by Ars Technica (Google beats Oracle—Android makes “fair use” of Java APIs, written by Joe Mullin), there was only one question on the special verdict form, asking if Google’s use of the Java APIs was a “fair use” under copyright law. The jury unanimously answered “yes,” in Google’s favor. The verdict ends the trial, which began earlier this month. If Oracle had won, the same jury would have gone into a “damages phase” to determine how much Google should pay. Because Google won, the trial is over – for now, at least.  Oracle vowed to appeal the decision as it did after the decision in 2012 where Google was found not to have infringed Oracle’s patents, despite inadvertent disclosures of draft emails (where recipients and the words “Attorney Work Product” hadn’t yet been added) in which a Google engineer discussed the need to negotiate terms with Oracle.

Oracle’s previous appeal was heard in December 2013 and the appellate court reversed the district court on the central issue in May 2014, holding that the “structure, sequence and organization” of an API was copyrightable.  The case was remanded to the district court for reconsideration only the basis of the fair use doctrine.

This time, prior to the trial starting earlier this month, U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s submitted an order urging both sides to respect the privacy of jurors after it became clear that both sides wanted that time to “scrub Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other Internet sites to extract personal data” and when asked about it, “counsel admitted this.”  Ultimately, as a result of Judge Alsup’s order, both sides agreed not to mine the jurors’ social media data.  Maybe Oracle wishes they had?  It will be interesting to see if Oracle can obtain another reversal on appeal.

So, what do you think?  Is this case finally over?  Or, will it keep going and going and going?  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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

The Cloud is a “Rush” Project’s Best Friend: eDiscovery Best Practices

Today is Friday.  While many of you can look forward to a long, enjoyable Memorial Day weekend, chances are that at least a few of you will be making weekend plans when, late in the day, you will receive a CD, DVD, hard drive or link to data on a server somewhere that needs to be reviewed over the weekend.  There goes your weekend!

Not only that, good luck connecting with your in-house litigation support person or a vendor for assistance late on a Friday – you may play a game of “phone tag” or wait for email responses for a bit.  Lit support people and vendors have weekend plans too.  Even if you do get in touch with them, you then have to fill out a form and arrange to get the data to them, which can be tricky.  It’s a lot of time, hassle and cost to get started – especially if you’re at a small law firm that doesn’t already have an eDiscovery software application to support processing and review of the data.

When consumers quickly need to find that special item to buy, or that new cool song to download, or need to stream the new season of Bloodline (available starting today on Netflix) for binge watching, they turn to the cloud.  More than ever, attorneys are turning to the cloud as well to help them get their “rush” project started immediately.  And, you don’t even have to own the software or interact with anyone to get started.

As an eDiscovery provider that offers a no-risk free trial, CloudNine (shameless plug warning!) sees at least one or two clients a week that give our software a try (many of them with “rush” projects just like this).  The trend toward automation and the cloud in the industry has not only made eDiscovery more affordable than ever, it has also made it easier than ever to get a “rush” project off and running.

If you find yourself in that situation later today, here are three easy steps to get started:

  1. Sign up for a free account here. You will receive an email with your credentials (including temporary password), to get started.
  2. When you first log in, you’ll see a button to “Upload Data”. That will take you to a form to download the CloudNine Discovery client (which is a Windows based client application that resides on your desktop) for uploading data for processing.  Download and install the client to upload data.
  3. Once the client is downloaded and installed, launch the client, log in with your newly created credentials and simply follow the wizard prompts to upload the desired data set and put it into the project of your choice (which you can create if it doesn’t already exist). It’s that easy!

We can’t get you out of working this weekend.  But, we can take the hassle out of getting started.  You’re welcome.  :o)

So, what do you think?  Have you been faced with any “rush” eDiscovery projects lately?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Daily will return on Tuesday as we remember this Memorial Day the people who gave their lives while serving in our armed forces.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Faster, Cheaper Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery: eDiscovery Trends

We had a terrific session on Tuesday discussing how automation is revolutionizing eDiscovery at The Masters Conference Windy City Cybersecurity, Social Media and eDiscovery event.  If you’re disappointed that you missed it, you’re in luck – there’s a recording of the session!

The Masters Conference brings together leading experts and professionals from law firms, corporations and the bench to develop strategies, practices and resources for managing the information life cycle.  There were a number of terrific sessions this Tuesday and a wonderful speech from (nearly 82 year old) Jesse White, the Illinois Secretary of State.  What an amazing life he has had – from being a paratrooper in the Army to playing minor league baseball with the Cubs to founding the Jesse White Tumbling Team to serve as a positive alternative for children to his time as a Chicago schoolteacher and his long tenure as Illinois Secretary of State.  He says he can still do a hand stand today.  I hope I have that much energy when I am his age.

Anyway, CloudNine sponsored the session Faster, Cheaper, Better: How Automation is Revolutionizing eDiscovery at 4:15 and the panelists, Rob Robinson, Managing Director of Complex Discovery, Kevin Clark, Executive Managing Director of Discovery Service for Hire Counsel, Jay Lieb, Founder and Managing Member of NexLP and I discussed a variety of current and emerging eDiscovery automation technologies.  The attendees were engaged and asked several good questions, so it was a very interesting free-form discussion regarding eDiscovery automation such as Technology Assisted Review, automated processing and pre-litigation artificial intelligence analysis.

Rob arranged for Kaylee Walstad of ACEDS to record the session and Rob has posted it on his Complex Discovery site here.  Thanks so much to Kaylee for recording the session!  Feel free to check it out.

The Masters Conference also has an event coming up in New York City in July and Washington DC in October.  Click here for more information on remaining scheduled events for the year.

So, what do you think?  Do you think that automation is revolutionizing eDiscovery?  As always, 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. eDiscovery Daily 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. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.