Knotty Issues of eDiscovery
Inspection or testing of certain types of electronically stored information or of a responding party’s electronic information system may raise issues of confidentiality or privacy. The addition of testing and sampling to Rule 34(a) with regard to documents and electronically stored information is not meant to create a routine right[…]
Read moreOne of the issues that continues to grow in importance is drafting a litigation hold (preservation) letter for your opponent. Of greater importance is enacting a litigation hold to avoid destroying any evidence. What goes into a litigation hold letter? Magistrate Judge Kathleen M. Tafoya extensively outlined what should go[…]
Read moreA Federal Court in Puerto Rico addressed a specific question: What sort of ESI is a social networking message? Is it an email? A blog? Or something else? Maldonado v. Municipality of Barceloneta, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19842 (D.P.R. Mar. 11, 2009) is a case where a party sought a protective order to[…]
Read moreA “conspiracy” is an “agreement by two or more persons to commit an unlawful act.” Black’s Law Dictionary, Pocket Edition, 1996. Like a tango dance, a conspiracy takes a partner. However, the number of people in a conspiracy can quickly make it look like a square dance, with everyone needing to[…]
Read moreFunny thing about discovery: Sometimes, the Judge needs to see the electronically stored information too. However, most judges will not want a lawyer to swing by in a truck to drop off 80 bankers boxes of printed email and spreadsheets at the courthouse. It is also unlikely many Courts can[…]
Read moreMany lawyers today no longer go to court with a pager on their belt, but a BlackBerry or iPhone. Partners can email directions to associates from the courthouse and associates can ping a paralegal for help at a deposition. Sending email is a normal part of the practice of law. […]
Read moreFacebook, YouTube and a whole list of other social networking sites are used every second of every day. People are Twittering their lives away online from their BlackBerries. There is no shortage of growing case law with online conduct leading to civil or criminal litigation. Here are several recent examples:[…]
Read more“Like any ordinary litigant, the Government must abide by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It is not entitled to special consideration concerning the scope of discovery, especially when it voluntarily initiates an action.” Judge Scheindlin once again delivered a powerful opinion with SEC v Collins & Aikman Corporation 2009[…]
Read more“OCR, while perhaps not absolutely necessary to litigation, is a tool that greatly decreases the time and effort counsel must invest in searching and examining documents. Presumably, each party would perform the OCR process in a cost-effective manner to minimize their costs. Requiring the parties to incur this cost, when[…]
Read moreIn Spieker v. Cherokee, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88103 (D. Kan. Oct. 30, 2008), the parties became entangled in a dispute over who created search terms for a set of specific discovery requests. The Plaintiff had served the Defendant with specifically defined Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 34 requests[…]
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