Like email is an electronic version of the ancient concept of paper mail, eDiscovery is simply the concept of discovery applied in the age of electronic data.
AmLaw firms get lots of love in eDiscovery circles, leaving many small and mid-sized firms to feel under-resourced and unsure of what to do when they have eDiscovery needs. This brief post is addressed to small law firms, and while it doesn't contain anything earth-shattering, hopefully it will grant a bit of perspective and peace of mind.
What happens when attorneys and their clients disregard both the spirit and letter of the FRCP’s eDiscovery rules? As illustrated in the case below, very bad things.
Even federal judges have breaking points, and after more than 8 years, 400+ docket entries, and an almost incomprehensible number of ESI blunders, defendants and their counsel unfortunately (but not surprisingly) found themselves on the exploding end of a 103-page, court-imposed sanctions truth-bomb.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but the metadata often helps illuminate whether those words are fact or faction.
Ari Kaplan recently posted results of his 6th Annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Survey, which deals with legal technology vendors and industry trends.
As we move toward launching our Proteus re-brand, I wanted to take time to comment on the findings, specifically as they relate to in-house legal teams.
We’re living in a time when social media has supplanted email as the primary means of electronic communication.
Social media is everywhere: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, and more take up more and more screen time - especially in a COVID era with more of us reliant on our screens for communication.
Apps that were once dominated by teens and twenty-somethings are increasingly used by their parents and grandparents. The President of the United States regularly sends late...
eDiscovery Project Managers (PMs) work in an environment where “I’m on vacation,” “It’s Christmas,” or “I just woke up after open-heart surgery” are rarely suitable reasons to tell a client no.
So, your organization is engaged in, or reasonably anticipates:
- Litigation defense
- Regulatory investigation (especially if you're held to GDPR or CCPA)
- Audit
- Or other legal dispute
Now what?
State and federal statutes, court rules, and government regulations each promulgate, frame, and define an organization’s obligations to identify relevant electronically stored information (“ESI”) when such conflicts arise. Identification is arguably among the most important responsibilities an...