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 Case Law: Conclusion of Case Does Not Preclude Later Sanctions
 eDiscovery Case Law: Conclusion of Case Does Not Preclude Later Sanctions 150 150 CloudNine

In Green v. Blitz U.S.A., Inc., the defendant in a product liability action that had been settled over a year earlier was sanctioned for “blatant discovery abuses” prior to the settlement. Defendant was ordered to add $250,000 to its settlement with plaintiff, to provide a copy of the court’s order to every plaintiff in every lawsuit against defendant for the past two years or else forfeit an additional $500,000 “purging” sanction, and to include the order in its first responsive pleading in every lawsuit for the next five years in which defendant became involved.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Checking References – General Suggestions
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Checking References – General Suggestions 150 150 CloudNine

Yesterday, we talked about the importance of checking references when considering eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers. In the next blogs in this series, I’m going to suggest some questions you may consider asking when doing a reference check. First, however, let me make some general suggestions.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Is Checking References Important?
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Is Checking References Important? 150 150 CloudNine

Over the years, I’ve been asked many times to serve as a reference for vendors with which I’ve worked. And, I’ve taken many reference-check phone calls. More often than not, those calls were less efficient and productive than they could have been — because they weren’t planned and good questions were not asked. In the next blogs in this series I’ll make some suggestions for doing an effective reference check.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Your ESI Collection May Be Larger Than You Think
 eDiscovery Best Practices: Your ESI Collection May Be Larger Than You Think 150 150 CloudNine

Here’s a sample scenario: You identify custodians relevant to the case and collect files from each. Roughly 100 gigabytes (GB) of Microsoft Outlook email PST files and loose “efiles” is collected in total from the custodians. You identify a vendor to process the files to load into a review tool, so that you can perform first pass review and, eventually, linear review and produce the files to opposing counsel. After processing, the vendor sends you a bill – and they’ve charged you to process over 200 GB!! What happened?!?

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eDiscovery Trends: Jurors and Social Media Don’t Mix
 eDiscovery Trends: Jurors and Social Media Don’t Mix 150 150 CloudNine

Discovery of social media is continuing to increase as a significant issue for organizations to address, with more and more cases addressing the topic, including this one and this one that have reached various conclusions regarding the discoverability of social media. However, when it comes to social media, courts agree on one thing: jurors and social media don’t mix. Courts have consistently rejected attempts by jurors to use social technology to research or to communicate about a case, and have increasingly provided pre-trial and post-closing jury instructions to jurors to dissuade them from engaging in this practice.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s 150 150 CloudNine

Yesterday, we talked about information to include in a Request for Proposal (RFP) to request eDiscovery and litigation support services. Before moving forward with a service provider for a project, there are a few due diligence steps you should take to protect yourself and your case-sensitive information.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Information to Provide in an RFP
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Information to Provide in an RFP 150 150 CloudNine

Open, two-way communication with a service provider is absolutely critical to a successful project. It needs to start early, even before a project starts. For many projects, it starts with the Request for Proposal (RFP). Your goal with an RFP is to get good information from a vendor: information on pricing, information on schedule, information on approach, and information on deliverables. To give you complete, accurate information, they need information from you.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Testing Your Search Using Sampling
 eDiscovery Best Practices: Testing Your Search Using Sampling 150 150 CloudNine

Friday, we talked about how to determine an appropriate sample size to test your search results as well as the items NOT retrieved by the search, using a site that provides a sample size calculator. Yesterday, we talked about how to make sure the sample size is randomly selected. Today, we’ll walk through an example of how you can test and refine a search using sampling.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: A “Random” Idea on Search Sampling
 eDiscovery Best Practices: A “Random” Idea on Search Sampling 150 150 CloudNine

Friday, we talked about how to determine an appropriate sample size to test your search results as well as the items NOT retrieved by the search, using a site that provides a sample size calculator. Today, we’ll talk about how to make sure the sample size is randomly selected.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Determining Appropriate Sample Size to Test Your Search
 eDiscovery Best Practices: Determining Appropriate Sample Size to Test Your Search 150 150 CloudNine

We’ve talked about searching best practices quite a bit on this blog. One part of searching best practices (as part of the “STARR” approach I described in an earlier post) is to test your search results (both the result set and the files not retrieved) to determine whether the search you performed is effective at maximizing both precision and recall to the extent possible, so that you retrieve as many responsive files as possible without having to review too many non-responsive files. One question I often get is: how many files do you need to review to test the search?

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