Project Management
April 01, 2013
By Doug Austin
Thursday, we covered the first four tips from Craig Ball’s informative post on his blog (Ball in your Court) entitled Eight Tips to Quash the Cost of E-Discovery with tips on saving eDiscovery costs. Today, we’ll discuss the last four tips.
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March 28, 2013
By Doug Austin
By now, Craig Ball needs no introduction our readers as he has been a thought leader interview participant for the past three years. I’m a regular reader of his blog, Ball in your Court and, last week, he published a very informative post entitled Eight Tips to Quash the Cost of E-Discovery with tips on saving eDiscovery costs. I thought we would cover those tips here, with some commentary.
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March 11, 2013
By Doug Austin
During my interviews with various thought leaders, we discussed various aspects of predictive coding and some of the perceived myths that exist regarding predictive coding and what it means to the review process. I thought it would be a good idea to recap some of those myths and how they compare to the “reality” (at least as some of us see it). Or maybe just me. :-)
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January 15, 2013
By Doug Austin
2012 was quite a year from an eDiscovery standpoint, with a number of cases that impacted how organizations handle discovery. As we did last year, it seems appropriate to review cases from 2012 before moving forward to this year. eDiscoveryDaily published 98 posts related to eDiscovery case decisions and activities over the past year, covering 62 unique cases! Perhaps you missed some of these? Now is your chance to catch up!
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December 07, 2012
By Doug Austin
As we discussed yesterday, one feature of review solutions that often gets overlooked is the ability for the review solution to automatically document searching and review activities. Not only does that make it easier to identify potential issues in the process; it also facilitates the ability for attorneys to demonstrate a defensible approach to discovery to the court. Let’s discuss two other areas where self-documentation can assist in the discovery analysis and review process.
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December 06, 2012
By Doug Austin
When evaluating eDiscovery review solutions, there are a number of features that attorneys consider as part of their selection process. For example: What searching capabilities does the solution have? How does it handle native files? How does it support annotations and redactions of images? Can it support conceptual clustering and predictive coding? But, one feature that often gets overlooked is the ability for the review solution to automatically document searching and review activities. Not only does that make it easier to identify potential issues in the process; it also facilitates the ability for attorneys to demonstrate a defensible approach to discovery to the court.
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December 04, 2012
By Doug Austin
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has announced new Guidelines for counsel and litigants regarding the discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”) effective as of last Tuesday (November 27). The Guidelines were developed by a bench-bar committee chaired by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte in partnership with the Court’s Rules Committee and unanimously approved by the entire Court.
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October 04, 2012
By Doug Austin
Take a closer look – that’s not the EDRM model you see above. It’s the new EDBP model.
EDBP stands for Electronic Discovery Best Practices and is the brainchild of Ralph Losey, whose e-Discovery Team® blog is one of the must-read blogs (and one of the most in-depth) in the industry. Ralph is also National e-Discovery Counsel with the law firm of Jackson Lewis, LLP, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida College of Law teaching eDiscovery and advanced eDiscovery and has also previously been a thought leader interviewee on this blog. Other than all that, he’s not very busy.
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September 20, 2012
By Doug Austin
It’s hard to believe that it has been two years ago today since we launched the eDiscoveryDaily blog. Now that we’ve hit the “terrible twos”, is the blog going to start going off on rants about various eDiscovery topics, like Will McAvoy in The Newsroom? Maybe. Or maybe not. Wouldn’t that be fun! Here are some highlights from the past six months.
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August 30, 2012
By Doug Austin
One thing about being a daily blog is that the posts accumulate more quickly. As a result, I’m happy to announce that today is our 500th post on eDiscoveryDaily! In less than two years of existence! So, what have we covered over the first 499 posts?
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August 14, 2012
By Doug Austin
So, you’re facing litigation and you need help from an outside provider to “get your ducks in a row” to understand how much data you have, how many documents have hits on key terms and estimate the costs to process, review and produce the data so that you’re in the best position to negotiate appropriate terms at the Rule 26(f) conference (aka, meet and confer). But, how much does it cost to do all that? It shouldn’t be expensive. In fact, it could even be free.
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July 13, 2012
By Doug Austin
People tend to use the terms Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) interchangeably and it’s a pet peeve of mine. It’s like using the word “irregardless” – which isn’t really a word. The fact is that QA and QC are different mechanisms for ensuring quality in…anything. Products, processes and projects (as well as things that don’t begin with “pro”) are all examples of items that can benefit from quality ensuring mechanisms and those that are related to electronic discovery can particularly benefit.
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July 12, 2012
By Doug Austin
There was an article in Law Technology News last Friday (Survey Shows Surge in E-Discovery Work at Law Firms and Corporations, written by Monica Bay) that discussed the findings of a survey released by The Cowen Group, indicating that eDiscovery work in law firms and corporations is growing considerably. Eighty-eight law firm and corporate law department professionals responded to the survey.
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June 28, 2012
By Doug Austin
When a case is filed, several activities must be completed within a short period of time (often as soon as the first seven to ten days after filing) to enable you to assess the scope of the case, where the key electronically stored information (ESI) is located and whether to proceed with the case or attempt to settle with opposing counsel. Here are several of the key early activities that can assist in deciding whether to litigate or settle the case.
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June 21, 2012
By Doug Austin
We like to point out good articles about eDiscovery on this blog to keep our readers aware of trends and best practices. I recently read an article on InsideCounsel titled E-discovery: Memorializing the e-discovery process, written by Alvin Lindsay, which had some good specific examples of where good documentation is important to prevent sanctions and save litigation costs.
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June 07, 2012
By Doug Austin
When litigation is anticipated, it’s never too early to begin collecting potentially responsive data and assessing it by performing searches and testing the results. However, if you wait until after the meet and confer with opposing counsel, it can be too late.
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April 30, 2012
By Doug Austin
Special Master, that is. Last week, Fios sponsored a webcast entitled Special Masters & e-Discovery with Craig Ball, who, in addition to being a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs throughout the US (and previous thought leader interviewee on this blog) has served as court-appointed special master in 30 cases (including at least one case covered here). Not surprisingly, the webcast was very informative, reflecting Craig’s considerable experience and knowledge in having served in that role in so many cases. Here are a few highlights.
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April 23, 2012
By Doug Austin
While a number of attorneys have yet to still embrace and fully understand eDiscovery best practices, most at least understand that there are (since 2006) Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that address discovery of electronically stored information (ESI) and (for most, but not all) similar rules at the state level. More are learning to conduct an initial discovery conference (a.k.a., “meet and confer”) with opposing counsel to address eDiscovery requirements at the beginning of a case and more now not only understand the requirements to preserve potentially responsive data once it is clear that litigation is imminent but also how to conduct the review and production in a defensible manner. However, as noted in this Texas Lawyer article, How to Prepare for E-Discovery Supplementation Obligations (written by Ross Cunningham and published in Law Technology News), an attorney’s eDiscovery obligations are not necessarily over after production.
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April 13, 2012
By Doug Austin
One major problem that many organizations are facing these days in large-scale litigation is that the demand for project managers far exceeds the supply. Law firms find themselves moving talented -- but inexperienced -- professionals into project management positions. Electronic discovery experts, litigation paralegals, technically savvy litigation support professionals, and even attorneys are taking on project management responsibilities with little experience or training. Our Jane Gennarelli can help with that.
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April 05, 2012
By Doug Austin
A recent article on The National Law Journal (entitled Top 12 tips for saving money in litigation, authored by Damon W.D. Wright) had some good tips for – you guessed it – saving money during litigation. I thought it would be worth discussing some of these, especially those that relate to eDiscovery cost savings practices.
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March 23, 2012
By Doug Austin
Yesterday, we discussed identifying custodians, preparing a written litigation hold, issuing the hold and tracking responses. Today, we’ll discuss interviewing hold notice recipients, follow up on notices, releasing holds when the obligation to preserve is removed and tracking all holds within an organization. Here are the rest of the best practices for implementing a litigation hold.
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March 22, 2012
By Doug Austin
When we reviewed key case decisions from last year related to eDiscovery, the most case law decisions were those related to sanctions and spoliation issues. Most of the spoliation sanctions were due to untimely or inadequate preservation of the data for litigation. As noted in Zubulake, Judge Shira Sheindlin ruled that parties in litigation have an obligation to preserve potentially relevant data as soon as there is a reasonable expectation that data may be relevant to future litigation. However, even if the party reacts in a timely manner to take steps to preserve data through a litigation hold, but executes those steps poorly, data can be lost and sanctions can occur. Here are some best practices for implementing a litigation hold.
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