Our Insights on eDiscovery

Read on to learn more about the latest trends and insights in the world of digital discovery.

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eDiscovery Trends: Delaware Has a New Standard for eDiscovery

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).

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eDiscovery Trends: Google “Vaults” Into eDiscovery Preservation

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of an eDiscovery tool named Vault for its Google Apps business customers. Google Apps Vault is an add-on which preserves electronically stored information (ESI), including Gmail, chats and other correspondence to help users meet preservation obligations for litigation, regulation and compliance laws.

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eDiscovery Trends: Three Years Later, “Deleted” Facebook Photos Still Online

So, that’s why they call it “Facebook”. Because the “faces” never leave! Ba-dum-bah! Hey, I’m in town all week! Thanks to the Technologist for this article, by way of Ars Technica. If you have deleted any of your photos from Facebook in the past three years, you may be surprised to find that they are probably still on the company’s servers.

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eDiscovery Trends: One Third of Surveyed Attorneys Plans to Increase eDiscovery Spending

A new survey from Robert Half Legal eDiscovery Services finds that spending by organizations on electronic discovery-related services grew in 2011 and should continue to increase through 2013. According to the survey of 350 attorneys in large law firms and corporations in the US and Canada, 23 percent of attorneys surveyed said their law firms and corporate legal departments increased eDiscovery expenditures in the last year, with 71 percent indicating that spending remained the same and just 2 percent indicating that they reduced spending. For 2012 and 2013, nearly one-third (33 percent) of attorneys expected to increase spending on eDiscovery, while 56 percent expect no change in spending and 4 percent expect to decrease eDiscovery spending.

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eDiscovery Case Law: Da Silva Moore Plaintiffs Question Predictive Coding Proposal, Judge Peck’s Activities

A few weeks ago, in Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion making it likely the first case to accept the use of computer-assisted review of electronically stored information (“ESI”) for this case. However, on March 13, District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. granted plaintiffs’ request to submit additional briefing on their February 22 objections to the ruling. In that briefing (filed last Monday, March 26), the plaintiffs claimed that the protocol approved for predictive coding “risks failing to capture a staggering 65% of the relevant documents in this case” and questioned Judge Peck’s relationship with defense counsel and with the selected vendor for the case, Recommind.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Issuing the Hold is Just the Beginning

Yesterday, we discussed identifying custodians, preparing a written litigation hold, issuing the hold and tracking responses. Today, we’ll discuss interviewing hold notice recipients, follow up on notices, releasing holds when the obligation to preserve is removed and tracking all holds within an organization. Here are the rest of the best practices for implementing a litigation hold.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Hold It Right There!

When we reviewed key case decisions from last year related to eDiscovery, the most case law decisions were those related to sanctions and spoliation issues. Most of the spoliation sanctions were due to untimely or inadequate preservation of the data for litigation. As noted in Zubulake, Judge Shira Sheindlin ruled that parties in litigation have an obligation to preserve potentially relevant data as soon as there is a reasonable expectation that data may be relevant to future litigation. However, even if the party reacts in a timely manner to take steps to preserve data through a litigation hold, but executes those steps poorly, data can be lost and sanctions can occur. Here are some best practices for implementing a litigation hold.

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eDiscovery Daily Is Eighteen! (Months Old, That Is)

Eighteen months ago yesterday, eDiscovery Daily was launched. A lot has happened in the industry in eighteen months. We thought we might be crazy to commit to a daily blog each business day. We may be crazy indeed, but we still haven’t missed a business day yet. As we’ve done in the past, we like to take a look back every six months at some of the important stories and topics during that time. So, here are some posts over the last six months you may have missed. Enjoy!

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eDiscovery Case Law: Not So Fast on Computer Assisted Review

A few weeks ago, in Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, No. 11 Civ. 1279 (ALC) (AJP) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 24, 2012), Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion approving of the use of computer-assisted review of electronically stored information (“ESI”) for this case, making it likely the first case to recognize that “computer-assisted review is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases.” However, last Tuesday (March 13), District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. granted plaintiffs’ request to submit additional briefing on their objections to the ruling.

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