Losing the Way Over E-discovery?

At the end of 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure got amended to address the question of electronic discovery in lawsuits. Not to be outdone, the Judicial Council of California has now proposed its own set of amendments.

If the proposed changes to California civil code dealing with electronic discovery procedures ultimately become law, the new rules will mean new burdens for parties appearing in state courts.

The Art of Redacting Privileged Data

In the old days, redacting privileged data from a document was simple. I would pull out my black Sharpie, cross out privileged words, and record the redaction on a privilege log. Attorneys produced redacted documents with full confidence that their client's privileged information would remain concealed. In today's age of electronic data discovery, attorneys can no longer retain the same confidence.

In 2005, I first witnessed the severe consequences of failing to understand the mechanics of the EDD production process. Opposing counsel produced hundreds of thousands of e-documents. I loaded these documents into a computer program from Ipro Tech Inc. that helps users view the produced documents as images, and then perform keyword searches.

How to Cope in the Era of E-discovery

With the amendments to the federal rules regarding electronic discovery just over a year old and the amendments to the Maryland rules effective this month, the courts are adjusting to the reality that most business and personal communications — potential evidence in litigation — originate in and travel by computer.

Maryland’s Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm called striking the balance between timely justice and the rising cost of performing e-discovery, where potentially millions of pages of documents are prospective evidence, “a bigger challenge now than the system itself has ever faced.”

Making Data Easily Accessible is a Major Need

Data, data and more data, that's what all enterprises have to deal with every single day. Anil Chakravarthy, VP, (India technical operations) of Symantec India, talks to CXOtoday Staff about the challenges of data management and the need for an efficient data management solution in today's business environment.

Losing the Way Over E-discovery?

At the end of 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure got amended to address the question of electronic discovery in lawsuits. Not to be outdone, the Judicial Council of California has now proposed its own set of amendments.

If the proposed changes to California civil code dealing with electronic discovery procedures ultimately become law, the new rules will mean new burdens for parties appearing in state courts.

E-discovery Product Purchase Considerations

As data volumes grow, it's increasingly difficult to locate relevant data. Data must be retained longer, and storage users cannot be counted upon to intuitively locate documents, spreadsheets or other data. This is a problem when dealing with electronic discovery (e-discovery) requests that impose a legal obligation to locate relevant data in a timely manner or face fines and possibly adverse judgments. Today, e-discovery tools provide powerful search capabilities that can quickly process and index billions of files based on keywords and other common metadata. The tools can also present search results in forms that are easy to understand and often deliver results in a form that is directly compatible with litigation management tools.

White House Admits Recycling Tapes, Hedges on Missing E-Mail

Conflict is igniting over official White House e-mails that some say have gone missing, though the Bush administration has officially denied that there is any reason to believe any have been lost. Others contend that the White House is well aware that e-mail for some executive offices of the President was not archived for up to 473 days. Rep. Henry Waxman has called for a hearing.

AIG Offers Clients E-Discovery Solution

AIG Executive Liability, a division of the property/casualty insurance subsidiaries of American International Group Inc. (AIG), announced AIG e-Discovery Solutions, a program of e-discovery-related products and services to help all of AIG Executive Liability’s clients, including the division’s directors and officers and errors and omissions insureds, more effectively manage the e-discovery process. AIG e-Discovery Solutions is a claims service offered by AIG Executive Liability to their clients.

In the event of a claim, implementing AIG e-Discovery Solutions is intended to assist clients and their defense counsel in effectively construct a strategy for handling the arduous and expensive practice of collecting electronically stored information, and supervise that strategy throughout litigation.

Data Security Becomes More Affordable

Security for data – whether it be e-mail archives, projects under development or even access to an employee workstation – is becoming increasingly important for businesses. Data that has been stolen, whether from hacking into a network or from a laptop taken from an employee’s car, has been sold to competitors, even posted on Ebay.

Practices that have been used by large corporations to protect their data and systems have started to trickle into the small and medium-sized business marketplace, said John Steindorf, president of Capital Data Inc., a Milwaukee IT solutions provider.

Managing e-Discovery And Avoiding Sanctions Under The FRCP Amendments

The Editor interviews Brad Harris, Director, Discovery Center of Excellence, Fios, Inc.

Editor: It has been one year since the amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. What have you seen as the biggest impact or change in corporate legal departments as a result?

Harris: Since the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) went into effect in December 2006 (and even before), the number one change we have seen is the an increased level of uncertainty and the fear of what might happen if changes are not made to how companies respond to e-discovery. ...

E-discovery Rules Still Causing IT Headaches

Many IT shops have spent months working to refit corporate systems so they comply with year-old changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, even as some executives say the revisions aren’t clearly defined.

However, some IT executives who complained about the rules did acknowledge that the FRCP modifications have forced them to make positive changes to corporate data-retention policies.

The revisions, which took effect on Dec. 1, 2006, require that opposing sides in a federal lawsuit meet within 99 days of its filing to determine what electronic data must be produced and in what format. Failure to comply could lead to fines or a prison sentence.

Managing Ethics in E-Discovery

Cases like Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., S.D. Cal. 05-cv-1958-B (SLM), have highlighted the dangers to lawyers and their clients of not properly managing electronic discovery. In Qualcomm, during the last day of trial, on cross-examination, a Qualcomm witness revealed the existence of certain unproduced records. After the trial, which Qualcomm lost, Qualcomm produced the records its witness belatedly disclosed, which totaled 200,000 pages.

The court found that the plaintiff's counsel was involved in the misconduct and concealment, despite the lawyers' claims that they had been misled by their clients. The court required Qualcomm to pay Broadcom's litigation costs, which will be millions of dollars, and entered an order to show cause requiring Qualcomm's attorneys to appear and show cause why sanctions should not be imposed upon them.

The Letter of the IT Law

Lawyers may have been the only ones paying attention, but it's been just over a year now since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) amendments on e-discovery went into effect, necessitating that companies take appropriate steps to improve how they respond to e-discovery requests, which basically refers to the methods by which electronically stored information is exchanged during a litigation process. The numbers from a recent survey on corporate e-discovery by on-demand archiving provider Fortiva show a rising problem in managing this information, as well as a rising number of resources devoted to solving it.

E-discovery case law trends beginning to emerge | WTN

Erik Phelps doesn't particularly like being the bearer of bad news, but as a business attorney for Michael Best & Friedrich, he often sounds like the old commercial slogan: “You can pay me now or pay me later.”

And with the number of e-discovery cases picking up dramatically - a recent monthly Lexis Nexis report included nearly 25 e-discovery cases - the longer you wait to craft sound policies and processes, and effectively communicate them, the more you will eventually pay.

Businesses Generally Ignoring E-Discovery Rules

A year and 16 days after the institution of the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Dec. 1, 2006, about two-thirds of U.S. businesses remain unprepared to meet strict court requirements for the discovery and handling of electronic evidence, according to a data storage researcher.

U.S. Companies Lack E-Data Strategy

A year after the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure e-discovery overhaul, a pair of corporate studies has concluded that fewer than half of U.S. companies have a clear strategy for managing electronically stored information and only a fraction of information technology managers have addressed the issue."

Chief Execs in Firing Line Over E-disclosure

Companies are advised to have electronic data policies to manage the storage of information to aid e-discovery in case of disputes or court cases. Both the chief executives who bear responsibility for compliance and many legal departments who implement policies are not knowledgeable enough, according to a survey by e-discovery specialists Kroll Ontrak.

"Clearly in the UK, in-house counsel and their external counsel are lacking significantly in their training and understanding of rules and regulations regarding their electronic information," said Martin Carey, managing director of Kroll Ontrack in London. "They do not yet seem to be grasping the fact that all this data is no longer just information; rather it can now all be considered as evidence. This fact alone shows a severe lack of ownership and understanding."

Learning EDD From the Mistakes of Others

Keeping up with the subject of electronic discovery is a lot like following the latest developments in the lives of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan: every week a new story and never good news. But just as we can live and learn vicariously through the missteps of the rich and famous, so can we learn from the facts through which the early years of electronic discovery jurisprudence is evolving. There have been hundreds of cases officially reported and/or discussed in the mainstream media since last December, when the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective, but the decisions discussed below are particularly illustrative of the most prevalent issues confronting the management, collection and production of electronically stored information (ESI).

Electronic Discovery in Europe: A Different Story

During the last decade, lawyers faced with the novelty of electronic discovery have reacted in different ways. Some lawyers have mastered it, some have become reasonably conversant with it and some have just added it to the list of things they know they don't know. However, there is an aspect of e-discovery that even the most experienced practitioners may not even know they don't know: the complexities of e-discovery in the international setting. This article gives a brief overview of issues that can arise in connection with international e-discovery, in particular those relating to data protection regimes, the technical requirements for processing data from other countries and other issues that may arise in the collection and review process.

Seagate Buys E-discovery Company

Storage vendor Seagate Technology said Thursday it plans to buy MetaLINCS, an e-discovery software firm. The vendor's move follows Iron Mountain's purchase earlier this year of Stratify, which is also focused on e-discovery.

MetaLINCS' technology will provide Seagate Services Group with an analytics engine complementary to its existing offerings for data archiving, recovery, and collection, the company said.

Seagate didn't disclose the deal's financial terms.