Bow Tie Law

Is ONE Keyword Adequate for a Search?

Magistrate Judge Facciola’s Asarco, Inc. v. United States EPA, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37182 (D.D.C. Apr. 28, 2009) dealt with a very brief issue: Was one keyword adequate for the search of electronically stored information?  Short answer: No In Asarco, the Plaintiff opposed a summary judgment motion and sought leave[…]

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Know Your Client’s ESI: You Really Don’t Want a Judge Saying, “This is Unacceptable”

This may surprise a few people: There is another magistrate judge besides Judge Waxse writing ESI opinions in Kansas.  Magistrate Judge Donald Bostwick issued an order granting in part and denying in part a motion to compel ESI in Patterson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS[…]

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I Fought the Law…The Government’s Discovery Obligations in Civil Litigation

“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[…]

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Court Orders OCR of Scanned Paper Documents, or Don’t Go to Court Claiming OCR will Cost $200,000

“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[…]

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Whose Search Term is it Anyway?

In 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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