Request for Production – Page 10

Check Please: Challenging a PDF Form of Production

April 15, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, Form of Production, Request for Production

Rahman v. Smith & Wollensky Rest. Group, Inc., is an employment discrimination case where the Defendants produced guest checks from a database in PDF format on CD-ROM, in three-year batches, with a unique index number identifying each check. Rahman v. Smith & Wollensky Rest. Group, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS[…]

Spinning the Spoliation Record (OR, Download MP3 Sanctions)

April 6, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, ethics, Music Downloads, Piracy, Request for Production

I watched David Boies argue the original Napster case on CSPAN while taking Computer and Internet Law at McGeorge, University of the Pacific. David Boies is more remembered for later representing Vice President Al Gore in the Bush v Gore legal saga. Online music downloads have caused litigation with the[…]

Magistrate Judge Peck’s Search Term Wake-Up Call

March 31, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, Email, Request for Production, Search Terms

This Opinion should serve as a wake-up call to the Bar in this District about the need for careful thought, quality control, testing, and cooperation with opposing counsel in designing search terms or “keywords” to be used to produce emails or other electronically stored information (“ESI”). Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck,[…]

The Express Way to Your Hard Drive

March 30, 2009 Josh Gilliland e-Discovery, Imaging Hard Drives, Request for Production

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[…]

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

March 2, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, e-Discovery, Motion to Compel, Request for Production

“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[…]

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

February 24, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, Form of Production, OCR, Request for Production, TIFF

“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[…]

Whose Search Term is it Anyway?

February 23, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, Form of Production, Motion to Compel, Request for Production, Search Terms, Uncategorized

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[…]

Production of Metadata and the Importance of the Meet & Confer Process

February 21, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, e-Discovery, Form of Production, Metadata, Motion to Compel, Native File, Request for Production, Uncategorized

This lawsuit demonstrates why it is so important that parties frilly discuss their ESI early in the evolution of a case. Had that been done, the Defendants might not have opposed the Plaintiffs’ requests for certain metadata. Moreover, the parties might have been able to work out many, if not[…]

Paper Please: The Baggers of e-Discovery

February 15, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, Form of Production, Motion to Compel, Request for Production

Requesting the form of production is not like telling the bag boy at the grocery store “paper please.” Moreover, you do not enter a grocery store and ask for “paper please” before you have even done any shopping. That is what happened in a recent case. In theory, parties are[…]

Discovery Production Workflow: Lessons from Magistrate Judges Facciola & Grimm

February 2, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, e-Discovery, Motion to Compel, Processing, Request for Production

In my prior posting Playing with Fire: Producing ESI as Paper we looked at the dangers of producing ESI as paper. In addition to the legal analysis, Judge Facciola outlined a workflow for the parties in Covad Communications Company v. Revonet, Inc. The Defendants represented to the Court that it[…]