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: Spoliate Evidence, Don’t Go to Jail, but Pay a Million Dollars
 eDiscovery Case Law: Spoliate Evidence, Don’t Go to Jail, but Pay a Million Dollars 150 150 CloudNine

As previously referenced in eDiscovery Daily, defendant Mark Pappas, President of Creative Pipe, Inc., was ordered by Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm to “be imprisoned for a period not to exceed two years, unless and until he pays to Plaintiff the attorney’s fees and costs that will be awarded to Plaintiff as the prevailing party”. However, ruling on the defendants’ appeal, District Court Judge Marvin J. Garbis declined to adopt the order regarding incarceration, stating: “[T]he court does not find it appropriate to Order Defendant Pappas incarcerated for future possible failure to comply with his obligation to make payment…”. So, how much is he ordered to pay? Now we know.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Introduction
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Introduction 150 150 CloudNine

If you work in a law firm or a corporate legal department, there will be times when you turn to a service provider to help with handling discovery materials — regardless of the technology and staff resources that you have. You might look to a service provider to handle work that your department doesn’t do. Or maybe your own resources are tied up and you just need more capacity. How to select the right provider, communicate effectively with that provider and ensuring high quality work (on time and on budget) are just some of the questions will be addressing in this new blog series.

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eDiscovery Case Law: No Sanctions for Scrubbing Computers Assumed to be Imaged
 eDiscovery Case Law: No Sanctions for Scrubbing Computers Assumed to be Imaged 150 150 CloudNine

When scrubbing data from a computer drive related to litigation, it’s a good idea to make absolutely sure that there is another copy of that data, via backup or forensic image. Don’t just take someone’s word for it. In Federal Trade Commission v. First Universal Lending, the FTC investigated the defendants for their mortgage modification practices by alleging that defendants had violated the Federal Trade Commission Act and that defendants had acted in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule. For the duration of the investigation, the court appointed a temporary receiver who took control of defendants’ business premises.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: No Bates, No Problem for Native Files
 eDiscovery Best Practices: No Bates, No Problem for Native Files 150 150 CloudNine

As today’s document collections are almost entirely electronic in a format used by the native application (i.e., “native files”), it has become more commonplace to produce those original native files to opposing counsel in eDiscovery. Producing the native files saves costs in converting the files to be produced to an image format (either TIFF or PDF) before production. And, for the recipients of a production, receiving native files enables them to also receive the metadata associated with those files (as it is contained within the files themselves). However, it seems to “upset the legal apple cart” when attorneys have to contemplate applying Bates numbers to native files.

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eDiscovery Trends: Facebook’s Self-Collection Mechanism
 eDiscovery Trends: Facebook’s Self-Collection Mechanism 150 150 CloudNine

One of the most enlightening revelations resulting from my interview with Craig Ball at LegalTech (published last Friday) was regarding a feature that he mentioned which Facebook added late last year that allows any user to download their information. I thought it was such a significant bit of information that a post dedicated to the feature (in addition to the coverage in the interview) was warranted. This feature is available via the Account Settings menu and enables users to collect their wall posts, friends lists, photos, videos, messaging, and any other personal content, save it into a Zip file and download the Zip file.

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eDiscovery Trends: Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C.
 eDiscovery Trends: Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C. 150 150 CloudNine

Today’s thought leader is Craig Ball. Craig is a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs throughout the United States, having delivered over 600 presentations and papers. Craig’s articles on forensic technology and electronic discovery frequently appear in the national media, including in American Bar Association, ATLA and American Lawyer Media print and online publications. He also writes a monthly column on computer forensics and e-discovery for Law Technology News called “Ball in your Court,” honored as both the 2007 and 2008 Gold Medal honoree as “Best Regular Column” as awarded by Trade Association Business Publications International. It’s also the 2009 Gold and 2007 Silver Medalist honoree of the American Society of Business Publication Editors as “Best Contributed Column” and their 2006 Silver Medalist honoree as “Best Feature Series” and “Best Contributed Column.”” The presentation, “PowerPersuasion: Craig Ball on PowerPoint,” is consistently among the top rated continuing legal educational programs from coast-to-coast.

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Managing an eDiscovery Contract Review Team: Use the Team’s Knowledge
 Managing an eDiscovery Contract Review Team: Use the Team’s Knowledge 150 150 CloudNine

The document review effort is the litigation team’s first in-depth exposure to the client’s electronic documents. The review staff will have more exposure to a broader range of documents than anyone else on the team, at least in the beginning of the case. When you are using contract reviewers, they will go away when the review is completed. You don’t want to lose what they’ve learned when the project is over, so you should take some steps to use their knowledge. Here are two things you can do.

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eDiscovery Trends: Tom O’Connor of Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center
 eDiscovery Trends: Tom O’Connor of Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center 150 150 CloudNine

Today’s thought leader is Tom O’Connor. Tom is a nationally known consultant, speaker and writer in the area of computerized litigation support systems. A frequent lecturer on the subject of legal technology, Tom has been on the faculty of numerous national CLE providers and has taught college level courses on legal technology. Tom’s involvement with large cases led him to become familiar with dozens of various software applications for litigation support and he has both designed databases and trained legal staffs in their use on many of the cases mentioned above. This work has involved both public and private law firms of all sizes across the nation. Tom is the Director of the Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center in New Orleans.

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Managing an eDiscovery Contract Review Team: Keep the Staff Motivated
 Managing an eDiscovery Contract Review Team: Keep the Staff Motivated 150 150 CloudNine

In the last blog post, we talked about steps you can take to ensure high-quality, consistent work from a contract review staff. There is one more, very important thing you should do: keep the staff motivated. There is no question that a motivated, content staff will produce better work than a staff that is indifferent. Here are a few things you can do.

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eDiscovery Trends: George Socha of Socha Consulting
 eDiscovery Trends: George Socha of Socha Consulting 150 150 CloudNine

Today’s thought leader is George Socha. A litigator for 16 years, George is President of Socha Consulting LLC, offering services as an electronic discovery expert witness, special master and advisor to corporations, law firms and their clients, and legal vertical market software and service providers in the areas of electronic discovery and automated litigation support. George has also been co-author of the leading survey on the electronic discovery market, The Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey. In 2005, he and Tom Gelbmann launched the Electronic Discovery Reference Model project to establish standards within the eDiscovery industry – today, the EDRM model has become a standard in the industry for the eDiscovery life cycle and there are eight active projects with over 300 members from 81 participating organizations. George has a J.D. for Cornell Law School and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

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