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Industry Trends

eDiscovery Trends: The Challenges of International eDiscovery
 

Litigation would be simpler if business never crossed international boundaries, but it often does. Global corporations have dozens of offices and thousands of employees scattered around the world, while smaller businesses may outsource call center work or manufacturing to China, India, or other countries that offer inexpensive labor.

As a result, eDiscovery can be complicated by international laws and the regulations regarding discovery across national borders, as well as the usual questions that affect legal discovery within the United States. Even if US courts have jurisdiction over entities from other countries and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply to discovery requests, there are still several issues and challenges associated with international eDiscovery, including:

  • Location of Data: Thanks to the widespread use of cloud computing and other types of online storage, the physical location of ESI sought in eDiscovery is not always easy to pinpoint. Information transmitted electronically in an email or text message, can pass through any number of phone lines and routers, to many servers and client machines around the globe, so determining the location of a message can become virtually impossible. As a result, it can be difficult to know which nation's laws on eDiscovery should be applied, much less how to execute them.
  • Expense: Due to the complexity of requesting eDiscovery through foreign channels, and under the legal restrictions imposed by foreign governments, the cost of tracking information across international borders is much higher than eDiscovery conducted solely within the US.
  • International Law: Every nation has its own laws and regulations surrounding electronic data and discovery practices, so it's important to understand legislation in the relevant countries and, when appropriate, take measures to contact the proper authorities before moving forward. Discovery practices that are common and legal in the US can be considered criminal in some other countries, so it’s critical to have foreknowledge of the laws and rules you'll be facing.
  • Cultural Issues: Along with variations in international law comes the difficulty of rationalizing the need for eDiscovery to foreign countries who may have different views on privacy. In a country where pretrial discovery is not the norm, the request for eDiscovery may be a strange and unwelcome concept that can often result in misunderstandings and non-compliance. Explaining American laws and customs becomes a vital role of any attorney seeking international eDiscovery.

In future posts, we will be discussing international eDiscovery issues in more depth, including the Hague Convention, privacy protection laws, blocking statutes and other challenges to eDiscovery abroad.

So, what do you think? Have you experienced these same issues, or are there other challenges you've faced in international eDiscovery? Please share any comments you might have, or let us know if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: You Have to Be Certifiable to Work in eDiscovery
 

In any industry, it becomes important to be able to gauge the knowledge and capabilities of your service provider.  As we noted recently with regard to cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers, certification builds a client's trust and confidence in the service provider.  While no industry standard certification has emerged for eDiscovery professionals – yet – some independent certification programs are in various stages of implementation to measure proficiency with eDiscovery best practices.

One program that is already in place today to verify eDiscovery competency is the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists® (ACEDS™), which is a relatively new organization that is gaining popularity as a member organization of eDiscovery professionals and a certification program with the Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) certification.  Last week, I spoke with Charles Intriago, President and Gregory Calpakis, Executive Director about ACEDS, how the program has evolved to this point and where it’s headed.

The group that founded ACEDS (The Intriago Group) is not new to certification programs, having previously established the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), which, according to Intriago, has become the “world standard” certification for private and public sector professionals (including the FBI, FDIC, OCC, and IRS) for detection and prevention of money laundering.

Development of the certification program was a laborious eight month process than began last year.  Highlights of that process include:

  • Psychometric Development: ACEDS used Kryterion, an organization dedicated to construction and validation of knowledge measurement tests, to develop the certification test.  Experts in constructing exams, Kryterion uses psychometrics to create exams that are fair and unambiguous to truly measure the knowledge and ability of the test taker.
  • Expert Involvement: Twelve experts throughout the country identified over 78 eDiscovery-related job tasks.
  • Initial Survey: From this information, a 272 question survey was sent out to thousands of people for information gathering purposes, with more than 430 responses to the survey received, which defined the frequency, relevance and importance of those tasks.  Based on the responses, statisticians ranked the tasks by occupation and importance to the eDiscovery process.
  • Question Development: ACEDS then gathered some forty experts to draft four-choice, multiple choice scenario-based questions for the exam.  222 initial questions were drafted.
  • Expert Refinement of Questions: Every question, or “item,” was then reviewed by a panel of at least six experts in a series of conference calls from August to October of last year.
  • Beta Testing: The initial version of the exam was launched on November 1 of last year, with more than 50 people taking the test in one of many Kryterion test centers.  A scientific analysis was then performed of the test results to determine how each question performed and confirm that each test question was fair, clear and unambiguous.
  • End Result: The current version of the exam was finalized in mid-March of this year and is 145 questions and must be completed in four hours.  So far, more than 100 people have taken it, with approximately 75% of them passing the test and receiving the certification.

The certification exam is focused on job tasks and practical job challenges, not changing case law, which Intriago, who is a lawyer and previously a partner at a large international law firm, federal prosecutor and Congressional subcommittee chief counsel, noted applies only to the districts where the cases are decided, in the absence of a Supreme Court ruling.  When you sign up for the exam, you receive a CEDS exam preparation manual, which covers the considerable range of eDiscovery topics covered in the exam.  Benefits of certification include private and public sector employer confidence in the competence of their employees, improved job and increased salary prospects, increased credibility, chance for reduced malpractice premiums, potential promotion to new positions, as well as a potential raise in billing rates.

The price of the exam and CEDS exam preparation manual is $995 ($795 if you’re an ACEDS member – membership can range from $150 to $195 for general and government memberships).

ACEDS is committed to keeping the certification program up to date and boasts a 16 member advisory board that includes a former president of the American Bar Association, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Florida, and key decision makers from major law firms and corporations.  The ACEDS site also has independent reporting in the News & Analysis section of the site, including this article referenced by eDiscovery Daily just last week.

For more information, go to aceds.org.

So, what do you think?  Is eDiscovery certification important to you?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: More On the Recommind Patent Controversy
 

Perhaps the most controversial story discussed in the eDiscovery community in quite some time is the controversy regarding the patent recently announced by Recommind for Predictive Coding via press release entitled, Recommind Patents Predictive Coding, issued on June 8.  I haven’t seen this much backlash against a company or individual since last summer when LeBron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat (and the subsequent championship-like celebration that he and his teammates conducted before the season).  How did that turn out?  😉

Since that announcement, there have been several articles and blog posts about it, including:

  • This one, from Monica Bay of Law Technology News, asking the question: “Is Recommind Blowing Smoke?”  where discussed the buzz over Recommind’s announcement;
  • This one, from Evan Koblentz (also of Law Technology News), entitled “Recommend Intends to Flex Predictive Coding Muscles” which includes responses from Catalyst and Valora Technologies;
  • This one, also from Evan Koblentz, a blog post from EDD Update, where Recommind General Counsel and Vice President Craig Carpenter acknowledges that Recommind failed to obtain a trademark for the term Predictive Coding (though Recommind is still using the ™ symbol on the term Predictive Coding onthis page);
  • Three blog posts in four days from Sharon D. Nelson of Ride the Lightning blog, which debate the enforceability of the patent and include a response from OrcaTec, noting that Recommind’s implied threat of litigation is “nothing more than an attempt to bully the market place”.

There are several other articles and blog posts regarding the topic, but if I listed them all, I’d have no room left for anything new!  Sorry that I couldn’t include them all.

I reached out to Bill Dimm, founder of Hot Neuron LLC, makers of Clustify, which clusters documents in groups for effective, expedited review and asked him his thoughts about the Recommind press release and patent.  Here are his comments:

"Recommind's press release would have been accurately titled 'Recommind Patents a Method for Predictive Coding,' but it went with the much more provocative title 'Recommind Patents Predictive Coding,' implying  that its patent covers every conceivable way of doing predictive coding.  The only way I can see that being accurate is if you DEFINE predictive coding to be exactly the procedure outlined in claim 1 of Recommind's patent.  Of course, 'predictive coding' is a relatively new term, so the definition is up for debate.  The patent itself says:

'Predictive coding refers to the capability to use a small set of coded documents (or partially coded documents) to predict document coding of a corpus.' That sure sounds like it allows for a lot of possibilities beyond the procedure in claim 1 of the patent.  The press release goes on to say: 'ONLY [emphasis is mine] Recommind's patented, iterative, computer-assisted approach can 'bend the cost curve' of document review.'  Really?  So, Recommind has the ONLY product in the industry that works?  A few of us disagree.  Even clustering, which Recommind claims does not qualify as predictive coding will bend the cost curve because the efficiency boost it provides increases with the size of the document set.

Moving on from the press release to the patent itself, I would recommend reading claim 1 if you are interested in such things.  It is the most general method that the USPTO allowed Recommind to claim –  the other claims are all dependent claims that describe more specific embodiments of claim 1, presumably so that Recommind would have a leg left to stand on if prior art was found to invalidate claim 1.  Claim 1 describes a procedure for predictive coding that involves quite a few steps.  It is my understanding (I am NOT a lawyer) that the patent is irrelevant for any predictive coding procedure that does not include every single one of the steps listed in claim 1.  Since claim 1 includes things like identification cycles, rolling loads, and random sampling, it seems unlikely that existing products would accidentally infringe on the patent.

As far as Clustify is concerned, Recommind's patent is irrelevant since our procedure for predictive coding is different.  In fact, I explained in a presentation at a recent conference why random sampling is a very inefficient approach (something that has been known for decades in other fields), so I wouldn't even be tempted to follow Recommind's procedure."

So, what do you think?  Will the Recommind predictive coding patent allow them to rule predictive coding?  Or only their specific approach?  Will LeBron James ever win a championship?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Full disclosure: Hot Neuron is a partner of Trial Solutions, which has used their product, Clustify, in various client projects.

eDiscovery Trends: If You Use Auto-Delete, Know When to Turn It Off
 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(f), adopted in 2006, is known as the “safe harbor” rule.  It provides that “[a]bsent exceptional circumstances, a court may not impose sanctions under these rules on a party for failing to provide electronically stored information lost as a result of the routine, good-faith operation of an electronic information system.”

Let’s face it, every time we turn on our computers, we overwrite data.  And, the mere opening of files (without changing any data) can change the metadata of a file – for example, simply opening a Microsoft Access® database changes the last modified date of the Access file, even if no records are changed.  If there wasn’t some measure of “safe harbor” protection, an organization facing litigation might find it very difficult to conduct business during the case.

While it’s not always clear to what extent “safe harbor” protection extends, one case from a few years ago, Disability Rights Council of Greater Washington v. Washington Metrop. Trans. Auth., D.D.C. June 2007, seemed to indicate where it does NOT extend – auto-deletion of emails.  In this case, the defendant failed to suspend auto-delete on its email system when their preservation obligation commenced, resulting in emails only being available on back-up tapes.  Their argument that the tapes were “not reasonably accessible” was denied by the court, describing their request as “chutzpah”.

Of course, email, like any other type of ESI, should be subject to document retention and destruction policies and old emails should be purged when they reach the end of the retention period.  Microsoft Outlook® provides an option via its Auto Archive function to delete the emails instead of archiving them.  You can select this setting for all emails (via the Tools, Options menu, Other tab) or for selected folders (by right-clicking on them, selecting Properties and then selecting the AutoArchive tab).  That’s at the client level.

But, most organizations use Outlook through Exchange.  Exchange Manager enables administrators to set auto delete policies for the email user population to manage retention and destruction of emails, thus being able to disable  the auto delete function for users when the duty to preserve arises.  If your organization uses auto-delete, it’s important to have a policy in place for disabling auto-delete for litigation, whether at the Outlook client level, the Exchange level or with any other email system.

So, what do you think?  Does your organization use auto-deletion of emails?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: eDiscovery Malpractice Case Highlights Expectation of Higher Standards
 

Normally, eDiscovery Daily reports on cases related to eDiscovery issues after the decision has been rendered.  In this case, the mere filing of the lawsuit is significant.

Friday, we noted that competency ethics was no longer just about the law and that competency in eDiscovery best practices is expected from the attorneys and any outside providers they retain.  An interesting article from Robert Hilson at the Association of Certified eDiscovery Professionals® (ACEDS™) discusses what may be the first eDiscovery malpractice case ever filed against a law firm (McDermott Will & Emery) for allegedly failing to supervise contract attorneys that were hired to perform the client’s work and to protect privileged client records.  A copy of the article is located here.

J-M Manufacturing Co., Inc., a major manufacturer of PVC piping, had hired McDermott to defend against civil False Claims Act charges concerning the quality and sale of its products to federal and state governments. After the case was filed in January 2006, it remained under seal for nearly three years.  According to the complaint, during that time, a large-scale document review ensued (160 custodians) and McDermott hired Stratify, an outside vendor, to cull through the ESI.

J-M retained Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton to replace McDermott in March 2010.  Why?  According to the complaint, McDermott worked directly with the Assistant US Attorney to develop a keyword list for identifying responsive ESI, but, despite this effort, the first production set was returned by the government after they found many privileged documents. The complaint indicates that McDermott and its contract lawyers then produced a second data set again with a large number of privileged documents even though it was filtered through a second keyword list.

J-M contends in the complaint that McDermott's attorneys “performed limited spot-checking of the contract attorneys' work, [and] did not thoroughly review the categorizations or conduct any further privilege review.”  After Sheppard replaced McDermott on the case, they asked for the privileged documents to be returned, but the “relator” refused, saying that McDermott had already done two privilege reviews before giving those documents to the government and, therefore, J-M had waived the attorney-client privilege. In the complaint, J-M contends that 3,900 privileged documents were erroneously produced by McDermott as part of 250,000 J-M electronic records that were reviewed.  It is unclear from the complaint whether McDermott provided the contract reviewers themselves or used an outside provider.  It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds.

So, what do you think?  Have you experienced inadvertent disclosures of privilege documents in a case?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Best Practices: Competency Ethics – It’s Not Just About the Law Anymore
 

A few months ago at LegalTech New York, I conducted a thought leader interview with Tom O’Connor of Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center, who didn’t exactly mince words when talking about the trend for attorneys to “finally tak[e] technology seriously”.  As he noted, “lawyers are finally trying to take some time to try to get up to speed – whining and screaming pitifully all the way about how it’s not fair, and the sanctions are too high and there’s too much data.  Get a life, get a grip.  Use the tools that are out there that have been given to you for years.” 

Strong words, indeed.  The American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct (Model Rules) require that an attorney possess and demonstrate a certain requisite level of knowledge in order to be considered competent to handle a given matter.  Specifically, Model Rule 1.1 states that, "[a] lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation."

Preparation not only means understanding a specific area of the law (for example, antitrust or patent law, both highly specialized.).  It also means having the technical knowledge and skills necessary to serve the client in the area of discovery.

The ethical responsibilities of counsel these days includes competently directing and managing the identification, preservation, collection, processing, analysis, review and production of electronically stored information (ESI) required to be produced pursuant to lawful discovery requests.  If counsel does not have that level of competency in a particular area, he or she is obligated to either acquire the knowledge or skill necessary to support those needs, or include someone else who does have the requisite skills as part of the representation.

Not too long ago, I met with an attorney and discussed how they handled preservation obligations with their clients.  The attorney indicated that he expected his clients to self-manage their own preservation and collection.  When I asked him why he didn’t try to get more involved to make sure it was being handled properly, he said, “I don’t want to alarm them.  They might decide they need a bigger firm.”

Recent case law is full of cases where counsel didn’t fully understand their eDiscovery obligations, and got themselves and their clients “burned” in the process.  If your organization gets involved in litigation, make sure to include eDiscovery competence among the factors you consider when determining counsel qualifications to represent you.

So, what do you think?  Is your counsel eDiscovery savvy?  If not, do they use a provider that is?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: Think Before You Hit Send
 

It’s not the only instance of a one character typo possibly ending a career; instead, it may simply be the latest.

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re probably aware of the “Twittergate” story involving Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), where he initially claimed that a lewd photo posted via Twitter was posted by a hacker to his account, then subsequently admitted this past Monday that he, in fact, posted that picture.  Many are calling for him to resign from his Congressional position after posting the picture, as well as sending other pictures, which have since been identified.  (If you have been living under a rock, you can click here for more on the story).

The irony is that a one-letter typo may turn out to be his undoing.  Weiner intended to send the “tweet” as a direct message to another Twitter user, but used the ‘@’ instead of the ‘d’ (to indicate a direct message) to reference that user.  As a result, the message was published to all his followers, not just the intended party.  In fairness, even if he had sent the direct message correctly, he used a public photo sharing service, yFrog, to share the photo, so anyone that chose to browse through all of his photos would have still seen the controversial photo.

It is easier to communicate than ever, with a myriad of options from which to choose, including voice, video, email, posts, texts and “tweets”.  Perhaps, it’s becoming too easy.  Courthouses are filled with cases where “informal” communications are key evidence in determining the outcome of the case.  The formal typed letter has given way to the informal media of email to the even more informal media of posts, texts and “tweets”.  Now, just as important as the adage “think before you speak” is the adage “think before you hit send”.

We’ve all been there, hopefully with much less disastrous consequences.  If you’ve never selected ‘Reply to All’ by accident instead of ‘Reply’ when intending to reply to only the sender, please call me and let me know your secret.  Or, maybe, you’ve sent an email when upset that you regretted later.  Once released, those mistakes are out there and are difficult (if not impossible) to recall.

If you’re not in the habit of doing so already, it’s a good idea to take a deep breath before each email sent or each post made and review what you’re about to send out into the world.  Think before you hit send.  If you don’t, you just might be the topic on a future ‘eDiscovery Case Law’ post on eDiscoveryDaily!  😉

So, what do you think?  Do you have any cases that are driven by informal communications?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: The Best SaaS Providers are Certifiable
 

The increasing popularity of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions is becoming well documented, with this very blog noting Forrester and Gartner predictions of tremendous growth in cloud computing over the next several years.  We’ve also noted the importance of knowing where your data is stored, as many online poker players learned the hard way when the recent US government crackdown of several gambling sites left them without a way to recover their funds.

If only there were some sort of certification, administered by an impartial third party, to ensure that your SaaS provider has implemented policies and processes that keep your information secure, stable and safe.  There is such a certification.

SAS 70 (the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70) defines the standards an auditor must employ in order to assess the contracted internal controls of a service provider. Service providers, such as insurance claims processors, credit processing companies and, especially pertinent to eDiscovery, hosted data centers, are evaluated by these standards. The SAS 70 was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) as a simplification of a set of criteria for auditing standards originally defined in 1988.  Standards such as SAS 70 became critical in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley, which created significant legal penalties for publicly traded companies who lacked sufficient control standards for their financial information.

Under SAS 70, auditor reports are classified as either Type I or Type II. In a Type I report, the auditor evaluates the service provider to prevent accounting inconsistencies, errors and misrepresentation. The auditor also evaluates the likelihood that those efforts will produce the desired future results. A Type II report goes a step further.  It includes the same information as that contained in a Type I report; however, the auditor also attempts to determine the effectiveness of agreed-on controls since their implementation. Type II reports also incorporate data compiled during a specific time period, usually a minimum of six months.

SAS 70 reports are either requested by the service provider or a user organization (i.e., clients). The ability for the service provider to provide consistent service auditor's reports builds a client's trust and confidence in the service provider, satisfying potential concerns. A SaaS (2 a’s, as opposed to one for SAS) provider that has received SAS 70 Type II certification has demonstrated to an impartial third party a proven track record of policies and processes to protect its clients’ data.  When it comes to your data, you want a provider that has proven to be certifiable.

So, what do you think?  Is your SaaS provider SAS 70 Type II certified?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Full disclosure: I work for Trial Solutions, which provides SaaS-based eDiscovery review applications FirstPass® (for first pass review) and OnDemand® (for linear review and production).  Our clients’ data is hosted in a secured, SAS 70 Type II certified Tier 4 Data Center in Houston, Texas.

Social Tech eDiscovery: Use of Smarsh for Social Media Archiving
 

The online world thrives on social media, but for attorneys who must preserve sensitive social media data for discovery, the widespread growth of social technology presents a laundry list of problems.

Not only is it challenging to trace the communications shared on popular sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter when privacy settings can be turned on and off at whim, it’s also difficult to know whether the information available at any given time is complete, as content can be edited by users at any time or lost due to technical malfunctions.

In some cases, like this example, courts have ruled that even locked or private content on Facebook and other social networking sites is not protected from being requested as part of discovery. In other cases, such as this one, they have ruled differently.  You don’t know for sure how courts will rule, so you have to be prepared to preserve all types of social media content, even possibly content that is changed frequently by users, such as Facebook profiles and blog posts.  And, even though Facebook has introduced a self-collection mechanism, it may not capture all of the changes you need.  And, other social media sites have not yet provided a similar mechanism.  If items are changed or lost after the duty to preserve goes into effect, your organization can be sanctioned with steep fines even receive an adverse inference judgment based on the information you are unable to produce.

Fortunately, there are viable solutions that enable you to create a backup of all social networking activity and archive such information in the event it has to be produced in discovery. Portland-based Smarsh has archiving and compliance tools, including social media archiving and compliance that automate the archiving of social media accounts, preserving all necessary data in case you need it later for discovery.

Some of the benefits of Smarsh’s social media archiving tools include:

  • A complete, logged, and quantifiable record of all social media posts and administrator activity
  • The ability to define which social media features your employees have access to and to track all business communications
  • Compliance with SEC and FINRA regulations (including Regulatory Notice 10-06)
  • The tools to identify and minimize risk, saving your business time, effort, and money

Smarsh has been designed to satisfy all regulatory compliance objectives, transforming the data management hazards of social media into a system that automatically updates and archives itself – an attorney’s dream when litigation strikes. This application creates a simple and proactive approach to archival of social media data, enforcing preservation to ensure that the duty to preserve is met.

So, what do you think?  Do you use Smarsh or any other social media archival tool?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: Email Footers Give Privilege Searches the Boot
 

This communication (including any attachments) is intended for the use of the intended recipient(s) only and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or legally protected.  Any unauthorized use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by return e-mail message and delete all copies of the original communication. Thank you for your cooperation.

This is an example of a standard email disclaimer often automated to appear in the footer of outgoing emails to disclaim liability.  Many organizations choose to add disclaimers to their emails for legal protection to attempt to protect themselves from legal threats such as breach of confidentiality or accidental breach of privilege.

However, when it comes time to collect and search email collections for confidentiality and privilege, these email footers can wreak havoc with those searches.  Searches for the words “confidential” or “privileged” will essentially be rendered useless as they will literally retrieve every email with the email disclaimer footer in it.

So, what to do?

One way to address the issue is to identify any other variations of words and phrases that might imply privilege.  Searching for phrases like “attorney client” or “attorney work product” – provided those phrases are not in the footer – may identify many of the privileged files.

Another way is to shift your search focus to names of individuals likely to conduct privileged communications, such as the names of the attorneys communicating with the organization.  Sometimes you may not know the names of all of the attorneys, so a search for domains associated with the outside counsel firms should identify the names of the individuals sending from or receiving to those domains.

If searching for the term "privileged" is still the best way to ensure that you find all of the potentially privileged files, one of our readers, Mark Lyon, actually identified a better way to search for the term “privileged” that I sheepishly admit I did not think of late last night when I wrote this, so I had to amend this post to include it (a first!).   Identifying the various footers at use within at least the main companies included in the collection, then excluding those entire footers from the index will remove those footers from filling up your search results.  Another reader, Joe Howie, has discussed in more detail an approach for removing those footers from the index.  Thanks to both Mark and Joe for keeping me on my toes!  🙂

So, what do you think?  Are email disclaimer footers making your privileged searches more complicated?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.