Our Insights on eDiscovery

eDiscovery Case Law: Apple Wins 1.05 Billion Dollar Verdict Against Samsung

August 27, 2012

A jury of nine on Friday found that Samsung infringed all but one of the seven patents at issue in a high-stakes court battle between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. The patent that they determined hadn’t infringed was a patent covering the physical design of the iPad. The jurors found all seven of Apple’s patents valid—despite Samsung’s attempts to have them thrown out. They also determined that Apple didn’t violate any of the five patents Samsung asserted in the case.

eDiscovery Case Law: No Kleen Sweep for Technology Assisted Review

August 24, 2012

For much of the year, proponents of predictive coding and other technology assisted review (TAR) concepts have been pointing to three significant cases where the technology based approaches have either been approved or are seriously being considered. Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe and Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation are two of the cases, the third one is Kleen Products v. Packaging Corp. of America. However, in the Kleen case, the parties have now reached an agreement to drop the TAR-based approach, at least for the first request for production.

eDiscovery Case Law: Pension Committee Precedent Takes One on the Chin

August 23, 2012

In Chin v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it was within a district court’s discretion not to impose sanctions against a party for its failure to institute a litigation hold.

eDiscovery Trends: Cloud Computing – A Lot of Benefit for the Cost

August 21, 2012

An interesting article in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel provides some useful, well-described benefits of cloud computing for eDiscovery (Cloud Computing And E-Discovery: Maximum Gain, Minimum Cost, written by Miró Cassetta). The author provides some good analogies to explain the different cloud service models, differences between private and public clouds and the benefits of using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application. Let’s take a look.

eDiscovery Best Practices: For Successful Predictive Coding, Start Randomly

August 20, 2012

Predictive coding is the hot eDiscovery topic of 2012, with three significant cases (Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe, Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation and Kleen Products v. Packaging Corp. of America) either approving or considering the use of predictive coding for eDiscovery. So, how should your organization begin when preparing a collection for predictive coding discovery? For best results, start randomly.

eDiscovery Case Law: More Sanctions for Fry’s Electronics

August 17, 2012

In E.E.O.C. v Fry’s Electronics, Inc., Washington District Judge Robert S. Lasnik ordered several sanctions against the defendant in this sexual harassment case (including ordering the defendant to pay $100,000 in monetary sanctions and ordering that certain evidence be considered presumptively admissible at trial), but stopped short of entering a default judgment against the defendant. This ruling came after having previously ordered sanctions against the defendant less than two months earlier.

eDiscovery Trends: Use of Internet-Based Tools, Predictive Coding, Up in 2012, Says ABA

August 16, 2012

According to a recently released report from the American Bar Association (ABA), use of Internet-based electronic discovery tools and predictive coding has risen in 2012. The 2012 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report: Litigation and Courtroom Technology (Volume III) discusses the use of technology related to litigation, ranging from hardware used in the courtroom to technology related to eDiscovery and e-filing. It includes a trend report summarizing this year’s notable results and highlighting changes from previous years.

eDiscovery Best Practices: Assessing Your Data Before Meet and Confer Shouldn’t Be Expensive

August 14, 2012

So, you’re facing litigation and you need help from an outside provider to “get your ducks in a row” to understand how much data you have, how many documents have hits on key terms and estimate the costs to process, review and produce the data so that you’re in the best position to negotiate appropriate terms at the Rule 26(f) conference (aka, meet and confer). But, how much does it cost to do all that? It shouldn’t be expensive. In fact, it could even be free.

eDiscovery Case Law: Major Bank and Law Firm Sanctioned for “Pattern of Discovery Abuses”

August 13, 2012

As noted in ABA Journal, Greenberg Traurig and its client, TD Bank, have received sanctions in Coquina Investments v. Rothstein for a “pattern of discovery abuses before, during, and after trial”. As U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke noted, “it often times appears that this litigation was conducted in an Inspector Clouseau-like fashion. However, unlike a Pink Panther film, there was nothing amusing about this conduct and it did not conclude neatly.”

eDiscovery Case Law: No Sanctions When You Can’t Prove Evidence Was Destroyed

August 10, 2012

In Omogbehin v. Cino, the plaintiff claimed that the District Court erred in denying his motion for spoliation sanctions and appealed to the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost as the appellate court upheld the rulings by the district judge and magistrate judge.