Electronic Discovery
May 24, 2013
By Doug Austin
With Anthony Weiner’s announcement that he is attempting a political comeback by running for mayor on New York City, it’s worth remembering the “Twittergate” story that ultimately cost his congressional seat in the first place – not to bash him, but to remind all of us how important it is to think before you hit send (even if he did start his campaign by using a picture of Pittsburgh's skyline instead of NYC's -- oops!). Here is another reminder of that fact.
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May 23, 2013
By Doug Austin
In Apple v. Samsung, California Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal granted Apple’s motion to compel third party Google to produce the search terms and custodians used to respond to discovery requests and ordered the parties to “meet and confer in person to discuss the lists and to attempt to resolve any remaining disputes regarding Google’s production.”
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May 22, 2013
By Jane Gennarelli
Last week’s blog post covered class action litigation – that is, a case that is filed on behalf of a group (or class) of members who have a common grievance or have suffered a common injury. One lawsuit is filed and there is one trial if the case goes that far. Another type of lawsuit that “consolidates” is multi-district litigation (usually referred to as MDL).
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May 21, 2013
By Doug Austin
Today is the start of LegalTech® West Coast 2013 (LTWC) and eDiscoveryDaily is here to report about the latest eDiscovery trends being discussed at the show. Today, we will provide a description of some of the sessions related to eDiscovery to give you a sense of the topics being covered. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out the show – there are a number of sessions available and 62 exhibitors providing information on their products and services, including (shameless plug warning!) my company, CloudNine Discovery, which just announced yesterday that we will be previewing a brand new, browser-independent version of our linear review application, OnDemand®.
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May 20, 2013
By Doug Austin
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Imager, which is a computer forensics software application provided by AccessData, as well as how to download your own free copy. Then, last week, we discussed how to create a disk image. This week, let’s discuss how to add evidence items with FTK Imager for the purpose of reviewing the contents of evidence items, such as physical drives or images that you’ve created.
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May 17, 2013
By Doug Austin
In AtHome Care, Inc. v. The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, Idaho District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel documents, ordering the defendant to identify and produce metadata for the documents in this case.
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May 16, 2013
By Doug Austin
Last week, we reported from the Annual Meeting for the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) group and discussed some significant efforts and accomplishments by each of the project teams within EDRM. That included an update from the EDRM Data Set project, where an effort was underway to identify and remove personally-identifiable information (“PII”) data from the EDRM Data Set. Now, version 1 of the Data Set is completed and available for download.
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May 15, 2013
By Jane Gennarelli
In the last two posts in this series, I told you a bit about alternatives to litigation. And that followed discussion of the litigation process, through the post-trial appeals process. We’re not done yet, though. When I discuss the litigation process with law firm technology professionals, they often ask me about different types of litigation… for example, about class action litigation, or multidistrict litigation, or antitrust litigation, and so on. In the next few posts, I’m going to describe different types of litigation so these terms will be familiar to you.
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May 14, 2013
By Doug Austin
In Advanced Tactical Ordnance Systems, LLC v. Real Action Paintball, Inc., Indiana Magistrate Judge Roger B. Cosbey took the unusual step of allowing the plaintiff direct access to a defendant company’s database under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 because the plaintiff made a specific showing that the information in the database was highly relevant to the plaintiff’s claims, the benefit of producing it substantially outweighed the burden of producing it, and there was no prejudice to the defendant.
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May 13, 2013
By Doug Austin
A few days ago, we talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK), which is a computer forensics software application provided by AccessData, as well as how to download your own free copy. Now, let’s discuss how to create a disk image.
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May 10, 2013
By Doug Austin
Yesterday, we discussed some general observations from the Annual Meeting for the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) group and discussed some significant efforts and accomplishments by the (suddenly heavily talked about) EDRM Data Set project. Here are some updates from other projects within EDRM.
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May 09, 2013
By Doug Austin
The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project was created in May 2005 by George Socha of Socha Consulting LLC and Tom Gelbmann of Gelbmann & Associates to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market. Now, beginning its ninth year of operation with its annual meeting in St. Paul, MN, EDRM is accomplishing more than ever to address those needs. Here are some highlights from the meeting, and an update regarding the (suddenly heavily talked about) EDRM Data Set project.
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May 08, 2013
By Jane Gennarelli
In last week’s post, we began discussion of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and we covered a common type of ADR – mediation. Another common form of ADR is arbitration.
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May 07, 2013
By Doug Austin
As we discussed recently in this blog, Microsoft® Outlook emails can take many forms. One of those forms is the MSG file extension, which is used to represent a self-contained unit for an individual message “family” (email and its attachments). MSG files can exist on your computer in the same folders as Word, Excel and other data files. But, when it comes to deduping those MSG files, the approach to do so is typically different.
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May 06, 2013
By Doug Austin
In Distefano v. Law Offices of Barbara H. Katsos, PC., New York Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson found that the defendant (an attorney who was being sued by the plaintiff she previously represented for breach of contract, negligence/legal malpractice, and breach of fiduciary duty/duty of care) had a duty to preserve information from a discarded computer and ordered a hearing for the defendant to address a number of questions to determine the potential relevance of the destroyed data and whether the defendant had a sufficiently culpable state of mind.
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May 03, 2013
By Doug Austin
Let’s recap. So far, in our discussion of free utilities for collection of data for eDiscovery, we’ve discussed the pitfalls of using drag and drop, the benefits of Robocopy (illustrating with the same example copy) and the benefits (and pitfalls) of Richcopy for targeted collection. But, are there any free tools that will enable you to perform a bit-by-bit forensic image copy that includes deleted files and slack space data? Yes, there is.
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May 02, 2013
By Doug Austin
In the caseIn re Coventry Healthcare, Inc.: ERISA Litigation, Maryland Magistrate Judge Jillyn K. Schulze rejected the defendants’ claim of undue burden where they failed to suggest alternatives to using the plaintiffs’ search terms and where they could enter a clawback order to eliminate the cost of reviewing the data for responsiveness and privilege.
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May 01, 2013
By Jane Gennarelli
In this blog series, we’ve covered the litigation process – from inception, to discovery, trial, and through the post-trial appeals process. Litigation is complex, it can take a long time, and the costs can be staggering. Parties to a dispute do have another option: Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). ADR encompasses processes and techniques for parties to resolve conflicts without resorting to litigation.
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April 30, 2013
By Doug Austin
Last week, we reported on potential amendments to the discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that could be adopted within the year. States are busy with changes too. One such state is Minnesota, which has amending its rules to emphasize proportionality, collaboration, and informality in the discovery process.
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April 29, 2013
By Doug Austin
In United States ex rel. King v. Solvay, S.A., Texas District Judge Gray Miller granted the defendant’s request for a protective order where the plaintiffs only offered generalized, unsupported claims to support their request to extend and expand discovery.
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April 26, 2013
By Doug Austin
If you want to be able to perform a forensically sound targeted collection, but would prefer a GUI based tool for performing the copy (instead of a command-line tool like Robocopy), then perhaps you should consider Richcopy. RichCopy is a free computer utility program developed by Ken Tamaru of Microsoft to copy file directories. It has some advantages, but also some pitfalls, to consider as a targeted copy and collection tool.
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April 25, 2013
By Doug Austin
In Robert Bosch LLC v. Snap-On, Inc., Michigan District Judge Robert H. Cleland granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel with regard to specific search terms requested for the defendant to perform. The judge denied the plaintiff’s request for sanctions to award attorneys' fees and expenses incurred in bringing its motion to compel.
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