Close
Enter your
text here

Electronic Discovery

If Your Documents Are Not Logical, Discovery Won’t Be Either – eDiscovery Best Practices

Scanning may no longer be cool, but it’s still necessary.  Electronic discovery still typically includes a paper component.  When it comes to paper, how documents are identified is critical to how useful they will be.  Here’s an example.

Your client collects hard copy documents from various custodians related to the case and organizes them into folders.  In one of the folders is a one page fax cover sheet attached to a two page letter, as well as an unrelated report and four different contracts, each 15-20 pages.  The entire folder is scanned as a single document, as either a TIFF or PDF file.

Only the letter is retrieved in a search as responsive to the case.  But, because it is contained within a document containing 70 to 80 other pages, you wind up reviewing 70 to 80 unrelated pages that would not otherwise have to review.  It complicates production, as well – how do you produce partial “documents”?  Also, if the non-responsive report and contracts have duplicates in the collection, you can’t effectively de-dupe those to eliminate those from the review population because they’re combined together.

It happens more often than you think.  It also can happen – sometimes quite often – with the scanned documents that the other side produces to you.  So, how do you get the documents into a more logical and usable organization?

Logical Document Determination (or LDD) is a process that some eDiscovery providers (including – shameless plug warning! – CloudNine Discovery).  It’s a process where each image page in a scanned document set is reviewed and the “logical document breaks” (i.e., each page that starts a new document) is identified.  Then, the documents are re-assembled, based on those logical document breaks.

Once the documents are logically organized, other processes – like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and clustering (including near duplicate identification) can then be performed at the appropriate level of documents and the smaller, more precise, unitized documents can be indexed for searching.  Instead of reviewing a 70-80 page “document” comprised of several logical documents, your search will retrieve the two page letter that is actually responsive, making your review and production processes more efficient.

LDD is typically priced on a per page basis of pages reviewed for logical document breaks – prices can vary depending on the volume of pages to be reviewed and where the work is being performed (there are providers in the US and overseas).  While it’s a manual process, it’s well worth it if your collection of imaged documents is poorly defined.

So, what do you think? Have you ever received a collection of poorly organized image files? If so, did you use Logical Document Determination to organize them properly?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Defendant Failure to Produce in Agreed Upon Format Leads to Dispute with Plaintiffs – eDiscovery Case Law
 

In EEOC v. SVT, LLC, 2:13-CV-245-RLM-PRC, 2014 U.S. Dist. (N.D. Ind. Apr. 10, 2014), discovery disputes arose when the plaintiffs and defendants agreed upon the file format the requested Electronically Stored Information (ESI) for discovery was to be produced in, but the defendants’ production was not in the file formats specified.

In this workplace discrimination case, the plaintiffs allege that the defendants had engaged in discriminatory hiring practices based on gender, specifically that the defendants refused to hire qualified applicants who were female, and that disproportionately more males than females were hired. The plaintiffs submitted a Request for Production that asked for documents from the defendants including “applications, screening assessments, interview guides, spreadsheets containing data about applicants and employees, and pay rate information.” Neither party disputed that this ESI constituted relevant discovery for the case.

The plaintiffs requested under the Request for Production that the ESI be furnished in specified formats. These formats included documents to be produced in “near native” TIFF format with load files, and spreadsheets and databases produced in native format. At this time, the defendants indicated compliance and agreed that the ESI would be produced in these formats.

The defendants began producing discovery responses by furnishing the plaintiffs with spreadsheets in non-native TIFF format, and with employment applications in single-page, non-unitized PDF that did not include load files. Along with these responses, the defendants claimed that that had produced all relevant data “pursuant to industry standards.” The defendants did not communicate to the plaintiffs, either during production or after serving the discovery responses, that they had any issues with the formats of production specified in the Request for Production. They simply did not follow the agreed format, with no explanation.

Upon review of the ESI, the plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Agreed-Upon Formats of [defendants’] Discovery Responses. The plaintiffs submitted a Declaration detailing the deficiencies of the file formats the defendants had submitted, including that the printed images (TIFF) of spreadsheets and database files were not reasonably usable “because they cannot be searched or manipulated for analysis,” and further that the PDFs produced by the defendants were in “a less usable format than the original data” because they had been “bulk-scanned,” resulting in single-page files that were not logically unitized, and had been stripped of metadata such as necessary document/page relationships.

The plaintiffs contended that the defendants could have produced the ESI in the requested formats, and that it would not have been unduly burdensome, using the Kronos and Financial Management Systems, Inc. (FMS) systems that the defendants regularly store and work with data on during the course of business. It was noted by the plaintiffs that both systems “are capable of providing users with data in many forms and come with built-in functionality to query, export, and report data from databases.”

Additionally, the plaintiffs noted that two of the defendants’ human resources representatives had testified during depositions with regard to their experiences working with Kronos, and had stated that they had the ability to generate reports in either PDF or Excel formats, and that FMS can export data to Excel. Both representatives stated that Kronos could be used to sort data, enter specific queries and generate customized reports on the information the plaintiffs sought, in these requested native formats.

However, the defendants objected, stating that their use of a third party hiring program in which Kronos stores the data from applicants online meant that they were limited to producing PDF documents without log files. The defendants stated that they were unable to access the “raw data” through the third party system, which is a cloud-based application. Further, it was noted that producing ESI in the formats requested by the plaintiffs would be unduly burdensome in a financial sense, as the plaintiffs had already spent substantial amounts to produce the discovery documents served thus far.

Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry noted that the defendants had not objected or sought a protective order based on their purported inability to comply with the plaintiffs’ requested ESI production format, and further that the data sought was not inaccessible, and therefore duplication costs could not be viewed as unduly burdensome. However, Judge Cherry was mindful of “the apparent inequality of resources available to the parties in this case, the excessive costs that can be incurred in producing ESI, and that such costs can become so burdensome as to pressure a party to settle in order to avoid those costs.”

Therefore, it was ordered that the parties meet and confer in person to work toward resolution of the file format issues revolving around discovery in this case. Further, since the plaintiffs had stated familiarity with the systems used by the defendants, and understood how the requested discovery could be obtained “easily,” Judge Cherry ordered that the plaintiffs provide “written” communication from the [defendants’] internal forensic computer expert…setting forth the remaining specific deficiencies with [plaintiffs’]…ESI production and proposing a specific and detailed explanation for obtaining and delivering the information in a cost-efficient manner for [plaintiffs].”

So, what do you think? Given the agreement, should the judge have granted the motion to compel? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Plaintiff Ordered to Produce Facebook Photos and Messages as Discovery in Personal Injury Lawsuit – eDiscovery Case Law
 

In Forman v. Henkin, 2014 NY Slip Op 30679 (NY Sup. Ct. Mar 19, 2014), a Motion to Compel was granted in part for a defendant who requested authorization to obtain records of the plaintiff’s private postings to Facebook.

In this New York personal injury litigation, the plaintiff had been injured after falling off a horse owned by the defendant. During deposition, the plaintiff testified that she had posted photos of herself engaged in various activities on Facebook prior to the accident, and that she could no longer engage in those activities due to her injuries. Additionally, the plaintiff alleged that she had suffered brain injuries from the fall, which have impaired her ability to read and write, leaving her unable to compose text messages and emails. The plaintiff also claimed that her memory had been impaired, and so she could not remember whether she had posted any photos on Facebook after the injury.

At some point after the accident, but prior to the litigation, the plaintiff had deactivated her Facebook account. The defendant filed a “motion to compel disclosure or for penalties due to the plaintiff’s nondisclosure” requesting access to the plaintiff’s photos, status messages, and instant messages on the Facebook account. No time frame was specified for the defendant’s request.

Judge Lucy Billings noted that any photos of the plaintiff prior to her injury would be of little probative value, because “[i]f she did post such photographs on Facebook, they only will corroborate her testimony. If she did not post such photographs, their absence will not show that she did not engage in various activities before her injury that she no longer engages in.” However, it was stated that photos of the plaintiff after the accident would be of probative value. Specifically, “Photographs of plaintiff engaging in various activities after her injury, particularly any activities she claims she no longer is able to engage in due to her fall from defendant’s horse…”

In addition to photos, the defendant requested writings by the plaintiff from both pre-injury and post-injury time frames, to assess “the impact of plaintiff’s injury on her ability to reason, find words, write, and communicate effectively.” Judge Billings agreed that the defendant was entitled to request the plaintiff’s writings, both after the accident and for a limited time period leading up to the accident for the purposes of comparison. In addition, the defendant was permitted to obtain a psychological and a physical examination of the plaintiff to assess her communication abilities. However, it was noted that the plaintiff’s writing outside of private Facebook messages, along with a single examination, “may not fully reveal the frequency, speed, and volume of her writing,” and therefore the defendant was entitled to obtain Facebook records showing “each time plaintiff posted a private message and the number of characters or words in the text of each private messages,” for a time period from the date of the accident to the deactivation of her Facebook account.

The plaintiff was ordered to produce within 20 days all photos of herself engaged in the activities she intends to introduce at trial that were posted to Facebook, as well as all photos posted to Facebook after her injury that do not contain nudity or romantic encounters, and to provide the defendant with authorization to obtain records from Facebook as stated.

So, what do you think? Should private Facebook accounts be subjected to discovery requests, even after accounts have been deactivated? Are Facebook records presented without the actual text of the messages or postings sufficient to introduce as evidence? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Apple Wins Another $119.6 Million from Samsung, But It’s Only 6% of What They Requested – eDiscovery Case Law

Those of you who have been waiting for significant news to report from the Apple v. Samsung litigation, your wait is over!

As reported last week in The Recorder (Jury Awards Apple $119.6 Million in Mixed Verdict), a California Federal jury ordered Samsung on Friday to pay Apple $119.6 million for infringing three of Apple’s iPhone patents.  However, the award was a fraction of the nearly $2.2 billion Apple was requesting.

According to the federal jury of four women and four men, nine Samsung mobile devices infringed on Apple’s “quick links” patent and three devices were found to have infringed on Apple’s “slide-to-unlock” patent.  The jury also calculated Samsung’s damages on Apple’s autocorrect patent, but ruled that Samsung products did not infringe on two other Apple patents.

The jury also awarded $158,400 to Samsung for its counterclaims of patent infringement against Apple.

In August of 2012, Apple was awarded over a billion dollar verdict, but U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh later reduced those damages to a measly $599 million and ordered a retrial on 13 of Samsung’s products, saying the earlier jury’s math on those gadgets didn’t add up.  Then, last November, a jury ruled that Samsung owed Apple another $290.5 million for selling mobile devices that infringed five iPhone and iPad patents, bringing the total awarded for infringing on Apple products back up to almost $930 million.  Now, the total awarded is back over a billion.

From the never ending case that brought us an adverse inference sanction and “patentgate”, resulting in another sanction for Samsung’s outside counsel (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP) for their inadvertent disclosure of Apple license information, what can happen next?  Stay tuned.

So, what do you think? Will this case ever end? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

300,000 Visits on eDiscovery Daily! – eDiscovery Milestones

While we haven’t served over 300 billion burgers like McDonald’s, we have provided something to digest each business day for over 43 months.  We’re proud to announce that on Friday, eDiscovery Daily reached the 300,000 visit milestone!  It took us a little over 21 months to reach 100,000 visits and just over 22 months to triple that to 300,000!  On to 500,000!

When we reach key milestones, we like to take a look back at some of the recent stories we’ve covered, so, in case you missed them, here are some recent eDiscovery items of interest from the past six weeks.

After 2,354 Public Comments, One Major Change to the Proposed Federal Rules: By the February 15 deadline for the comment period, no less than 2,354 public comments had been filed regarding the proposed Federal Rules amendments.  Much of the controversy related to Rule 37(e)(1)(B), which included a hotly debated amendment that the court may impose sanctions or order an adverse jury instruction, but only if it finds that the failure to preserve caused “substantial prejudice” in the litigation and was “willful or in bad faith,” or that the failure to preserve “irreparably deprived a party of any meaningful opportunity” to litigate the claims in the action.  Since then, Rule 37(e) has been modified, not just once, but twice.

Government Attorneys Have eDiscovery Issues Too: From a confidence standpoint, 73% of respondents feel as confident or more confident in their ability to manage eDiscovery in their cases.  But, 84% of respondents feel somewhat or not at all effective in their agency’s ability to deal with the challenges of eDiscovery and 80% of respondents feel somewhat or not at all confident that if challenged their agency could demonstrate that their ESI was “accurate, accessible, complete and trustworthy.  These and other survey findings are available here.

Cloud Security Fears Diminish With Experience: According to a recent survey of 1,068 companies conducted by RightScale, Inc., concern about cloud security diminish as users gain more experience using cloud-based services.  Learn more about organizations’ cloud habits here.

Daughter’s Facebook Post Voids $80,000 Settlement: As reported a few weeks ago on CNN, the former head of a private preparatory school in Miami lost out an $80,000 discrimination settlement after his daughter boasted about it on Facebook.  That’s why it’s important to think before you hit send.  Even if you’re still in grade school.

New California Proposed Opinion Requires eDiscovery Competence: If a new proposed opinion in California is adopted, attorneys in that state had better be sufficiently skilled in eDiscovery, hire technical consultants or competent counsel that is sufficiently skilled, or decline representation in cases where eDiscovery is required.

Predictive Analytics: It’s Not Just for Review Anymore: One of the most frequently discussed trends in this year’s annual thought leader interviews that we conducted was the application of analytics (including predictive analytics) to Information Governance.  A recent report published in the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology (and discussed here) addresses how analytics can be used to optimize Information Governance.

How Do You Dispose of “Digital Debris”? EDRM Has Answers:  Those answers can be found in a new white paper discussed here.

Also, hackers took Typepad, our platform for hosting the blog, down for a bit.  But, we’re back and better than ever!

Want to get to know some of your litigation support colleagues better?  Leave it to Jane Gennarelli, who has provided profiles here, here, here, here, here and here.

We’ve also had 11 posts about case law, just in the last six weeks (and 296 overall!).  Here is a link to our case law posts.

Every post we have ever published is still available, so the blog has become quite a knowledge base over the last 43+ months.  Sometime this summer, we will publish our 1,000th post!

On behalf of everyone at CloudNine Discovery who has worked on the blog and other publications that have picked up and either linked to or republished our posts, thanks to all of you!  We really appreciate the support!  Now, on to the next topic.  🙂

And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Parties’ Failure to Cooperate Sparks Denial of Defendant’s Motion to Reconsider Court Ordered Discovery – eDiscovery Case Law
 

In Cactus Drilling Co. v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co., 2014 U.S. Dist.. 11-14 (W.D. Okla. April 2, 2014), a largely contentious discovery phase was a major contributor to the decision of Oklahoma Chief District Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange regarding the defendant’s Motion to Reconsider, or Alternately, Motion for Clarification of the Court’s Order.

Discovery issues had plagued this litigation since the beginning, as both parties had repeatedly failed to communicate properly with one another, resulting in multiple interventions by the court. Upon the filing of the defendant’s Motion to Reconsider and a fourth request for continuation of the trial, Judge LaGrange held a hearing which discussed some of the discovery issues, among other things. The defendant stated at this hearing that some of the discovery documents requested by the plaintiffs—hard copies belonging to a key player who was no longer employed by the defendant—may have been inadvertently destroyed.

Pursuant to the hearing, Judge LaGrange instructed the parties to file status reports regarding the status of the discovery issues. While both parties accordingly filed a Joint Status Report soon after the hearing, once again there was a failure to communicate between parties, ultimately leading to the defendant’s filing of the Motion to Reconsider, or Alternately, Motion for Clarification of the Court’s Order.

This motion asked to reconsider an earlier court order that would allow discovery on the company’s document retention policies and litigation hold strategies, in order to investigate the circumstances under which the paper documents of the defendant’s former employee been destroyed. The defendant alleged that the court order was issued prematurely, and that it was irrelevant and not discoverable.

In response to the issue of the order being premature, it was found that this was not the case, as the defendant had known about the plaintiff’s request for this discovery at the time the parties filed the Joint Status Report, in which the defendant requested a ruling on whether they were required to produce discovery on their document retention policies along with a relevant witness for deposition.

The relevancy of the plaintiff’s discovery request was also addressed as such: “Plaintiff is entitled to inquire into the circumstances of the destruction of such relevant files while this litigation is pending, whether defendants took proper precautions, and whether such precautions were actually exercised by defendants’ employees. Thus, clearly a discovery request on defendants’ document retention and litigation hold practices and policies and whether such policies were followed with respect to [the former employee’s files] is relevant and discoverable.”

In conclusion, Judge LaGrange denied the defendant’s Motion to Reconsider, and ordered both parties once again to attempt to resolve the issues surrounding discovery and the defendant’s document retention and litigation hold practices in good faith.

So, what do you think? Should a party have the right to request discovery on document retention policies when relevant discovery documents are not obtainable? Should the cooperation—or lack thereof—between parties affect the court’s ruling on various motions? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Contentious Discovery Dispute Process Leads to Ruling on “Reasonably Usable Format” for ESI – eDiscovery Case Law
 

In Castillon v. Corrections Corporation of America, Inc., No. 1:12-cv-00559-EJL (D. Idaho Feb. 7, 2014), Idaho District Judge Edward J. Lodge found a discovery dispute over the form of production of electronically stored information (ESI) in favor of the defendants, who had already produced the requested data in what was ruled a “reasonably usable format.”

This civil rights action displayed a demonstrated lack of cooperation between opposing counsel from the outset of the discovery phase. Following the first discovery disputes, it was noted that counsel had “refused to interact with each other reasonably and civilly. Many of the motions and briefs filed by both parties are full of hyperbole and contain unfounded accusations against opposing counsel.” While a discovery mediation had been somewhat successful in that both parties resolved many of the issues and filed a Stipulation as to certain discovery disputes, contention returned after just over one month, when the plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel regarding information that was allegedly covered in the production produced by the defendants thus far.

Specifically, the plaintiffs sought to compel “all documents and communications including copies of the unit log books, shift logs, and other activity logs for all staff and contractors” employed by the defendants, as well as “all documents and communications including all records containing the terms of compensation and bonuses for any CCA employee with any supervisory authority” within a stipulated time period of January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2012. This discovery was categorized under Requests for Production Nos. 10 and 12, respectively.

The plaintiffs claimed that the information provided by the defendants regarding compensation and bonuses contained data for only one of the three named employees in supervisory capacities that they had requested, and further that the time frame of the information provided was insufficient. Additionally, the plaintiffs took issue with the format in which the documents were provided—specifically, searchable PDFs. The plaintiffs argued that “this is not a reasonably usable format and request that this information be re-produced in machine readable format and also request data covering a longer period of time.”

With regard to the first point of information concerning three specific supervisory employees, Judge Lodge ruled that the two employees for which data was not provided were outside the scope of discovery for this case. Specifically: “They do not work at ICC. They are not prison wardens. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel improperly seeks information that Plaintiffs did not include in their discovery request. Plaintiffs’ Motion is therefore frivolous.”

Regarding the form of production for the documentation requested, the defendants pointed out that they had produced the data from their timekeeping database in searchable PDF format, which is the format that their system natively exports data. The defendants outlined the scenario that would allow them to produce ESI in the .csv (comma separated values) format requested by the plaintiffs as unduly burdensome and duplicative, as it would “require CCA to write a script that would then enable [the system] to export the time detail information Plaintiffs seek,” a process that would be “lengthy and daunting” and require “a team of between three and four people […] to expend three to four days creating the script, testing it, and confirming the accuracy of the data it produces.”

Judge Lodge ruled that because the defendants had already produced the requested data, they would not be required to produce it again in a different form. Further, it was noted that searchable PDF format is considered a reasonably usable form because “as the name implies, it can be easily searched.” The plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel was denied, though it was stipulated that if the plaintiffs agreed in writing to pay the defendants’ expenses in creating the script required to produce data in the requested format, they could approach the defendants with such a request.

So, what do you think? Should the term “reasonably usable form” cover any searchable format of ESI? Which party should be responsible for the costs of producing ESI in a specified format agreed on during discovery? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

How to “Alert” Yourself to Interesting eDiscovery News and Announcements – eDiscovery Trends

Several people have asked me where I get ideas for topics to create a daily blog post on eDiscovery Daily.  There are several great resources out there – including law technology sites, compilation sites and other blogs – and I’ve mentioned many of them over the years and referenced their articles and posts in this blog.  But, there is another source – from a huge, well known company – that I scan daily to keep abreast of developments in the industry (and for good blog topic ideas).

Google has a very useful feature, called “Alerts”, which are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on a query (or queries) that you provide.  It’s great for monitoring a developing news story or keeping current on a competitor or your industry (as well as tracking news about your favorite celebrities or sports teams).  Here’s how it works:

  1. Go to the Alerts page on the Google site (here’s the link).  If you have a Gmail account and haven’t already logged into it, you’ll want to do so – it works best with Gmail, but doesn’t have to be tied to a Gmail account.
  2. Type the term or terms for which you want results into the Search query box.  You will then see a preview of the type of results you’ll receive to the right to see what you can expect to get in your alert.
  3. Select a Result type that you want to pull – valid choices are Everything, News, Blogs, Video, Discussions and Books.
  4. Select a Language to pull (default is English, but there are over 40 languages to choose from!).
  5. Select a Region to pull, which is essentially the same as country (default is Any Region, which will pull regardless of where the source is located).
  6. Determine How Often you want updates (default is Once a day, but you can receive emails with items “As-it-happens” – talk about “digital debris”! – or Once a week).
  7. Determine How Many, which is either Only the best results (default) or All results.
  8. Specify where to Deliver to – if you’re logged in to your Gmail account, that will be the default, but you can also specify some other feed.
  9. Click the button to CREATE ALERT.  The alert will then be created and be sent to your desired email address or feed, based on the parameters specified above.

You can also manage your alerts from this page and make adjustments to them or remove them outright if you don’t want to receive them anymore.

I have daily alerts set up for “eDiscovery” and “e-Discovery” (the results are sometimes different) as well as “saas” and “information governance”.  I receive the emails at the same time each day and usually go through them to see if there’s any notable news or articles worth reviewing.  Alerts typically include press releases, product announcements, articles and blog posts (including, of course, the daily post from eDiscovery Daily!).  Wouldn’t want to be left out.

Not every item is exactly on point.  For example, in today’s alert, there was a real estate listing for a house in “2445 E Discovery Place” in Langley, WA.  But, then again, you sometimes get amusing articles such as “10 Ways to tell a lawyer knows nothing about eDiscovery” from Searcy Law.com.  Every now and then, you need a good laugh.

So, what do you think? How do you keep up to date on your industry?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Why Did I Get Two Emails This Morning? – eDiscovery Subscriptions

If you are an email subscriber to the blog (thanks for subscribing, by the way!), you may have noticed an anomaly in your Inbox this morning – two eDiscovery Daily emails.  So, why did this happen?  Here’s why.

Yesterday, we changed subscription feed providers, from our old provider (Feedburner) to our new provider (FeedBlitz).  We did so, because the FeedBlitz service gives us greater flexibility to customize the email to make it more useful to you.  The new subscription feed emails will include the title of the day’s post in the Subject line and will also provide links to recent stories, giving you another chance to catch them if you missed them.  We hope that you’ll find this new format to be much more informative and user-friendly.

Unfortunately, while migrating the feed over to the new service, I missed an important step in the process – turning off the old feed.  Oops.  So, those of you who subscribe via email received two emails today.

I believe that I have corrected the problem and you should only receive one email each day we have a new post going forward.  Sorry for the inconvenience and any “digital debris” that may have resulted in redundant emails.  😉

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

How Do You Dispose of “Digital Debris”? EDRM Has Answers – eDiscovery Best Practices

In 2012, the Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council (CGOC) released survey results indicating that nearly 70 percent of organizational information has no legal or business value and noted that, for most organizations, information volume doubles every 18-24 months.  Now, EDRM, in collaboration with the CGOC, has released a new white paper to address growing concerns related to the amount and substance of electronic data currently created and stored.

Announced last week, the white paper, titled Disposing of Digital Debris – Information Governance Strategy and Practice in Action, is designed to provide readers with the strategy and practice they need to achieve disposal of their unnecessary electronic information.  Why is this issue such a major problem in organizations today?  Consider the following:

  • Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data and rising;
  • Storage locations can include on-site, off-site, cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) deployments and appear in a variety of hybrid configurations;
  • Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook combine large volumes of data with high intensity social habits, creating large volumes of potentially sensitive data;
  • IT infrastructure, burdened by the storage and management of excessive data, shoulders high hidden costs that impact its budget and degrade application performance and operations;
  • eDiscovery processes result in the preservation of large amounts of data, including many duplicates that will be re-used as evidence in future litigation if not properly destroyed;
  • New regulatory requirements such as Dodd-Frank and privacy regulations increase the cost and risk of unnecessarily managing data debris.

With these factors contributing to the problem and nearly 70 percent of organizational data having no legal or business value, the need to identify and dispose of digital debris is clear.  To address the issue, the white paper is organized into three sections:

  1. The Problem – Defining and Identifying Digital Debris: This section discusses the tendency of IT departments to “keep everything forever”, provides several examples of digital debris and discusses the advantages of – and roadblocks to – disposal.
  2. The Strategy – Utilizing the Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) Framework to Define and Design a Successful Information Governance Program: This section reviews the IGRM model (previously covered on this blog here) and covers a three-step approach to effectively begin to reduce both the risk and overhead costs associated with risky retention of digital debris.
  3. The Practice – Implementing the Strategy with Success: This section discusses and provides graphics to illustrate best practices for integrating people, process and technology and the benefit of a holistic approach involving all stakeholders, including Records management, Legal, Line of business users, Privacy and security and IT.

The white paper is available here and can be viewed online or downloaded as a PDF file.

So, what do you think? Does your organization have an effective program in place to eliminate “digital debris”? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.