Our Insights on eDiscovery

eDiscovery Best Practices: See Jane Teach – How To Manage Litigation Projects

April 13, 2012

One major problem that many organizations are facing these days in large-scale litigation is that the demand for project managers far exceeds the supply. Law firms find themselves moving talented — but inexperienced — professionals into project management positions. Electronic discovery experts, litigation paralegals, technically savvy litigation support professionals, and even attorneys are taking on project management responsibilities with little experience or training. Our Jane Gennarelli can help with that.

eDiscovery Case Law: Better Late Than Never? Not With Discovery.

April 12, 2012

In Techsavies, LLC v. WFDA Mktg., Inc., Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman of the United States District Court for the District of Northern California sanctioned the defendant for repeated failures to produce responsive documents in a timely manner because of their failure to identify relevant data sources in preparing its initial disclosures.

eDiscovery Best Practices: First Name Searches Are Not Always Proper

April 11, 2012

I’ve worked with numerous clients over the years and provided assistance regarding searching best practices to maximize recall without sacrificing search precision, including the use of fuzzy and synonym searches to identify additional potentially responsive files and sampling to test the effectiveness of searches. In several cases, the initial list of proposed search terms sent to me by the client includes first names of several individuals to search for as standalone terms. Unfortunately, first names don’t always make the best search terms.

eDiscovery Trends: Rules Changes for Spoliation Could Come as Soon as 2013

April 10, 2012

With cases related to preservation and spoliation issues continuing to be prevalent, as well as continued greater emphasis on proportionality in eDiscovery, the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure has requested comments on possible changes to the federal rules relating to preservation and spoliation of evidence. Much of the framework for the proposed rules was derived from Judge Shira Scheindlin’s opinions on eDiscovery, particularly those in the Zubulake case. These changes could be finalized as soon as December 2013.

eDiscovery Case Law: Judge Peck Responds to Plaintiff’s Request for Recusal

April 5, 2012

On Monday, Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck issued an order (in the case Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group) in response to Plaintiffs’ request for his recusal, which, according to Judge Peck, was contained in a letter dated March 28, 2012 (not currently publicly available). Here is what the Order said.

eDiscovery Best Practices: Tips for Saving Money in Litigation

April 5, 2012

A recent article on The National Law Journal (entitled Top 12 tips for saving money in litigation, authored by Damon W.D. Wright) had some good tips for – you guessed it – saving money during litigation. I thought it would be worth discussing some of these, especially those that relate to eDiscovery cost savings practices.

eDiscovery Case Law: Tennessee Court Orders Split eDiscovery Costs, Plaintiff Bond for Additional Discovery

April 4, 2012

In considering the allocation of costs in this contentious business dispute, Tennessee Magistrate Judge Joe B. Brown (not to be confused with TV’s Judge Joe Brown) ordered the parties to split the expenses related to material they had not already produced in Lubber Inc. v. Optari, LLC.

eDiscovery Case Law: Two Pages Inadvertently Disclosed Out of Two Million May Still Waive Privilege

April 3, 2012

In Jacob v. Duane Reade, Inc., Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York found that a privileged, two-page email that was inadvertently produced did not have to be returned and that the privilege had been waived because the producing party, Duane Reade, had failed to request its return in a timely manner. According to Defendants’ counsel, the ESI production involved the review of over two million documents in less than a month; that review was accomplished with the assistance of an outside vendor and document review team.

eDiscovery Trends: What Do Investment Bankers Think About the eDiscovery Industry?

April 2, 2012

We’ve published a few studies and surveys regarding the state of the eDiscovery industry, including this one from last week and this one from last fall. Another industry review was published just last month by VRA Partners, an investment banking firm based in Atlanta, GA.

eDiscovery Trends: Delaware Has a New Standard for eDiscovery

March 30, 2012

On Dec. 8 of last year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware revised the “Default Standard for Discovery, Including Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (ESI)” for the third time to reflect recent changes in technology and to address concerns of attorneys regarding the discovery of ESI. The new Default Standard expects the parties to reach agreements cooperatively on how to conduct discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26-36. If the parties are unable to agree on the parameters and/or timing of discovery, the default standards will apply until further order of the Court or the parties reach agreement (which is why it’s a default standard).