Crane on Law by James Crane

Corporate legal departments dedicate anywhere from 5 – 50% of their legal department assets to the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

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Proofpoint has released results from a March 2008 survey of 301 US companies with more than 20,000 employees regarding email and data loss. The highlights from the responses include:

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One of the basic terms you will encounter in computer forensics is MD5. MD5 (message-digest algorithm 5) is the most commonly used cryptographic hash function with a 128-bit hash value and is represented by a 32 digit hexadecimal number. It was designed by MIT professor Ron Rivest in 1991 and first published in 1992. If you have a deep interest in cryptography and computer forensics, check out his site here. He maintains many links to resources and his published works.

In Connor v. Sun Trust Bank, the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia held that an adverse inference instruction is appropriate when an employer did not take the steps to properly preserve and produce an email relating to an FMLA claim by a former employee. The key players were the former employee, Connor, the defendant employer, Sun Trust, and the supervisor of the former employee. At issue in the case was a relevant February 12th email written by the supervisor, which detailed the decision to terminate Connor. It was not properly preserved and never produced. When Connor discovered the February 12th email by another means, they filed a Motion for Sanctions for Destruction of Evidence. Senior District Judge Robert J. Vining, Jr. granted the plaintiff’s Motion after considering the following five-factor analysis as applied in the 11th Circuit:

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In my role as Senior e-Discovery Counsel with Altep, I work with many of the finest legal professionals in the world. That group includes attorneys, paralegals, litigation support specialists, and various IT personnel. One of the most interesting aspects of this collaboration is how much one can learn by gaining knowledge of the different perspectives of each of the players in the execution of a legal matter. Since my readers include people from every angle of the legal profession, I wanted to pass along some of my favorite sites for you to consider:

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As a Denver-based attorney, I was proud to see that Qwest and their General Counsel Rich Baer were given the honor of Top Corporate Legal Department in Corporate Counsel. In the Denver legal community, Mr. Baer is known as hard working attorney, and an all-around great guy. I’ve always been impressed that Qwest was able not only to withstand all of the lawsuits and inquiries that swirled around telecom earlier in the decade, but that they came out if it that much stronger. Kudos to Baer and the entire Qwest legal team!!

In the world of corporate defense, production gaps can turn a winnable case upside down the moment the opposing party switches into discovery attack mode. Any seemingly small error in gathering or producing data invites the spectre of spoliation. If the corporate client is unable to present a detailed explanation and justification for any alleged oversight, sanctions will probably follow.

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Every organization needs a litigation hold process that is consistent, defensible, and repeatable. At a minimum, the hold program must:

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Well, IQPC's E-Discovery Conference was a big success. Our discussion was well received, and I gained some important insights from the other speakers and attendees. One of the programs featured Chief US Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck of the Southern District of New York and Chief District Judge James Rosenbaum of the District of Minnesota. Both gentlemen were extremely interesting and tech-savvy, and posed some thought-provoking items.

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Partnering with Corporate Law Departments on large-scale actions has been Altep's specialty for more than a decade. As a result, we have planned and executed many of the world’s largest e-discovery cases to a successful conclusion. So, when corporate counsel comes to us with a matter and asks “Ok, what do we do?” we have the answer - complete with point-by-point itemized checklists of what to do, timelines, cost and performance considerations, etc.

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