Knotty Issues of eDiscovery
The idea of a litigation hold getting produced in a lawsuit is nightmare fuel for many attorneys. Nothing good will come from it. Luckily for the party in this case, the Court denied that motion to compel…without prejudice. In a punitive class action case over claims false advertising of nationwide[…]
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Back in the Before Times, many of us used to fly places to see others at eDiscovery conferences. It might be another year before we can have in person events again. However, there is no shortage of case law with motion practice over searching ESI. In a dispute between the[…]
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In an employment discrimination case, the Plaintiff brought a motion for sanctions at the end of discovery for 1) loss of email (plus security footage and printed forms); and 2) inadequate email production. The sanctions motion failed on those claims, but was successful on other grounds for a jury instruction.[…]
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Rule 26(f) requires parties to discuss the preservation of electronically stored information during the meet and confer process. If we think of the meet and confer like the Staff of Ra in Raiders of the Lost Ark in identifying what needs to be preserved, the parties went digging for a[…]
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Producing discovery as large PDFs is a sure way to end up in motion practice. In White v Wiseman, such a production was called “nonresponsive to the discovery requests.” White v Wiseman, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119121, *2 (D. Utah, July 6, 2020). Here is what happened: the Producing Party[…]
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There is a very important reality to remember when it comes to discovery: documents do not mean electronically stored information. It is time to get used to that distinction and stop saying, “document” when a lawyer means, “electronically stored information.” The reason is simple: the new California Code of Civil[…]
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Two ways to improve discovery productions is to clearly state the form of production in the discovery request and to have a meaningful meet and confer about producing discovery. Failing to do either can result in motion practice. In this dispute, the requesting party claimed the electronically stored information (ESI)[…]
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Lawsuits are about people. Who did what when is the crux of every dispute. Living in an age where people can send email, text, and chat from their phones, there can be a lot of places to look for discoverable data in a dispute. The proliferation of data could make[…]
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Cloud hosted repositories can be very effective in controlling eDiscovery costs. Data can be hosted and access shared to the litigants to review specific data. Permissions can be devised so neither side can see the work product of the other, only the data. The California Court of Appeal weighed in[…]
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The drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not add words as filler for Rule 26(a)(1). Litigants are required to disclose “the name and, if known, the address and telephone number of each individual likely to have discoverable information.” Furthermore, parties must provide copies or descriptions of “all[…]
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