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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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Preventing Unexpected Schedule Problems
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Preventing Unexpected Schedule Problems 150 150 CloudNine

Of all the problems you might have to report to an attorney, the worst may be that you are going to miss a production deadline. Deadlines get missed because document or data collections are larger than expected, the task is more difficult than expected, sufficient technical resources aren’t allocated to the project, or the project simply isn’t staffed properly. Good communication up front with a vendor, and good monitoring throughout a project can minimize the chance of missing deadlines.

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eDiscovery Case Law: Written Litigation Hold Notice Not Required
 eDiscovery Case Law: Written Litigation Hold Notice Not Required 150 150 CloudNine

The Pension Committee case was one of the most important cases of 2010 (or any year, for that matter). So, perhaps it’s not surprising that it is starting to become frequently cited by those looking for sanction for failure to issue a written litigation hold. In Steuben Foods, Inc. v. Country Gourmet Foods, LLC, a U.S. District Court in the Western District of New York declined to follow the Pension Committee decision in the Southern District of New York to the extent that the Pension Committee decision held “that implementation of a written litigation hold notice is required in order to avoid an inference that relevant evidence has been presumptively destroyed by the party failing to implement such written litigation hold.”

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
 eDiscovery Best Practices: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? 150 150 CloudNine

Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? OK, it’s an old song by Chicago (back then, they were known as the Chicago Transit Authority). But, the question of what time it really is has a significant effect on how eDiscovery is handled.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: What Are the Skeletons in Your ESI Closet?
 eDiscovery Best Practices: What Are the Skeletons in Your ESI Closet? 150 150 CloudNine

Law firms and corporations alike tend to keep data storage devices well beyond what their compliance requirements or business needs actually dictate. These so-called “skeletons in the closet” pose a major problem when the entity gets sued or subpoenaed. All that dusty data is suddenly potentially discoverable. Legal counsel can be proactive and initiate responsible handling of this legacy data by defining a new, defensible information governance process.

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eDiscovery Case Law: Facebook Did Not Deduce That They Must Produce
 eDiscovery Case Law: Facebook Did Not Deduce That They Must Produce 150 150 CloudNine

In this case, United States Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd of the Northern District of California compelled Facebook to produce ESI that was previously produced in a converted, non-searchable format and further ordered Facebook not to use a third-party vendor’s online production software to merely “provide access” to it. The court’s order granting the plaintiff’s Motion To Compel Production in In re Facebook PPC Advertising Litigation, 2011 WL 1324516 (N.D.Cal. Apr. 6, 2011) addressed the importance of ESI Protocols, the requirement to produce ESI in native formats, and production of documents versus providing access to them.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Preventing Unexpected Costs
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Preventing Unexpected Costs 150 150 CloudNine

Unfortunately, it’s just not possible to know up-front precisely what a litigation support or eDiscovery project will cost. There are too many unknowns, and, therefore, too many opportunities for surprises regarding costs. You can, however, avoid some of those surprises with good upfront communication with the vendor. Here are some steps you can take to prevent surprises and control costs.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Monitoring Work and Preventing Problems
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Monitoring Work and Preventing Problems 150 150 CloudNine

So many law firm litigation support folks that I know have an unpleasant war story or two about a project they did with a vendor. I usually find these frustrating, because more often than not, the problems could have been avoided. Taking a few preventative steps early on, and doing a good job of monitoring project activity can make all the difference. In the next few posts in this series, we’re going to look at ways to make the projects you do with vendors run smoother.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Checking for Malware is the First Step to eDiscovery Processing
 eDiscovery Best Practices: Checking for Malware is the First Step to eDiscovery Processing 150 150 CloudNine

A little over a month ago, I noted that we hadn’t missed a (business) day yet in publishing a post for the blog. That streak almost came to an end last week. As I often do in the early mornings before getting ready for work, I spent some time searching for articles to read and identifying potential blog topics and found a link on a site related to “New Federal Rules”. Curious, I clicked on it and…up popped a pop-up window from our virus checking software (AVG Anti-Virus, or so I thought) that the site had found a file containing a “trojan horse” program. The odd thing about the pop-up window is that there was no “Fix” button to fix the trojan horse. So, I chose the best available option to move it to the vault. Then, all hell broke loose.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: 4 Steps to Effective eDiscovery With Software Analytics
 eDiscovery Best Practices: 4 Steps to Effective eDiscovery With Software Analytics 150 150 CloudNine

I read an interesting article from Texas Lawyer via Law.com entitled “4 Steps to Effective E-Discovery With Software Analytics” that has some interesting takes on project management principles related to eDiscovery and I’ve interjected some of my thoughts into the analysis below. The steps are as follows.

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eDiscovery Trends: Apple Responds to the iPhone/iPad Location Controversy
 eDiscovery Trends: Apple Responds to the iPhone/iPad Location Controversy 150 150 CloudNine

Yesterday, we talked about the latest litigation for Apple, which was sued for alleged privacy invasion and computer fraud by two customers in a federal complaint in Tampa, Florida who claim the company is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users. Yesterday, Apple issued a press release response to questions regarding this controversy, published here on Business Wire.

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