How Do You Decide What is a Vital Record?

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:00:00 +0100

All organizations need a disaster recovery plan. This plan will need to account for everything from personnel and leadership to equipment and facilities that will need to be put back in place following a disaster. In addition to accounting for these obvious items, an organization will need to ensure that its Vital Records are also secure and able to be recovered.

These days, maintaining multiple secure copies of documents is not a problem. However, the key issue is how [...]

In Case You Missed It: Court Demands Parties Answer Questions About Spoliation

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:00:00 +0100

The Northern District Court of California found a "troubling picture" when trying to understand how documents were possibly destroyed by a third-party defendant Taishan in Dong Ah Tire & Rubber Co., Ltd. v. Glasforms, Inc., a breach of contract case.

Even after months of discovery, testimony of Taishan's 30(b)(6) witnesses, and court ordered search and pr [...]

In Case You Missed It: Production in Paper is Not Reasonably Usable Form

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:00:00 +0100

So, what happens when a party requests production of relevant electronically stored information, doesn't specify the form of production, and the producing party gives them boxes of paper documents that were converted to PDF and printed out?

The Kansas District Court looked at this issue last month in White v. Graceland Coll. Ctr. for Prof'l. Dev. & Lifelong Learning, Inc., a wrongful termination case.

Plaintiff filed a motion to compel production of [...]

In Case You Missed It: Adverse Inference Instruction in CA Dist Ct

james.crane@altep.com — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:00:00 +0100

In Keithley v. Home Store .com, Inc., a patent infringement case in the Northern District Court of California, the magistrate judge recommended that the District Court give an adverse inference instruction to the jury due to defendants' discovery misconduct described as "among the most egregious" she'd ever seen.

The bad discovery conduct included:

False or misleading statements to the plaintiffsMaterial misstatements to the courtNo litigation [...]

Shiny AAPI People...

james.crane@altep.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Altep is pleased to be sponsoring the AAPI happy hour this Friday at the Grand Hotel in Fairhope, Alabama. AAPI is celebrating their 25th year of leading the way for Alabama paralegals! Oh, to be 25 again...

We're really looking forward to sharing a good time and a beautiful sunset reception with our friends in Alabama.

Don't Miss Us at ILTA Next Week!

james.crane@altep.com — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0100

We are sending a big team to the 31st Annual Education Conference of the International Legal Technology Association event at the Gaylord Texan this year. ILTA is a peer networking organization that seeks to maximize the value of technology in support of the legal profession. Sounds a lot like what we seek to do everyday... so we plan to be a part of the show this year!

Hope we see you there!

In Case You Missed It: LotusNotes and Accessibility

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0100

In Parkdale Am., L.L.C. v. Travelers Cas. and Sur. Co. of Am., Inc. (2007 WL 4165247), the Western District Court in North Carolina decided that relevant emails in LotusNotes format should be produced despite Plaintiffs' objections that it would cost $20,000 to convert them to a searchable format.

The Court found that because the emails were from a key custodian, and the amount at stake dwarfed the cost of the discovery burden, Plaintiffs' objection bas [...]

No More Paper Review!

james.crane@altep.com — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Do you remember your last paper review?

There's no need to conduct any more paper reviews. I only bring this up because twice in the last week, attorneys have told me that they recently had over 10,000 pages of paper "blowback" to be reviewed. Notwithstanding the dangers of paper cuts, and leaving aside society's [...]

We Were In Oklahoma City with NALA on July 30 and 31

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Altep is always there to support the legal profession and we were proud to be part of the National Association of Legal Assistants Annual Conference in Oklahoma City.

We had a great time meeting the wonderful professionals of NALA.

Poetic Justice in Action

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I always enjoy when a judge provides entertainment in his opinion, either in the way of comedy, emotion, or just plain wit. In a recent case in the U.S. District Court of Washington, Judge Ronald Leighton granted a Motion for a More Definite Statement in a complaint alleging racketeering against GMAC Mortgage.

Judge Leighton was not impressed with the 465 page lawsuit and set out his conclusion in a limerick:

"Plain [...]

The NFPA Tech Show is in Denver This Year

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

I have bragged about the high quality professionals that are members of the National Federation of Paralegal Associations in this blog before. I am happy to report that I will be presenting a program at this year's Tech Show in Denver later this month.

[...]

Milberg-Weiss Round Up

james.crane@altep.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Most attorneys have at least casually followed the Milberg Weiss scandal that has been playing out for the last couple of years. The felony settlement by one of the class-action leaders included some troubling details that many people suspected, but hoped were not true. The partners at Milberg, Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss, admitted to felonies and settled for $75 million.

The firm admitted that over the decades, seven former partners paid sec [...]

Happy Birthday America!

james.crane@altep.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

The "Committee of Five" (John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman) worked together for three weeks to draft the United States Declaration of Independence. Two hundred and thirty-two years ago today, the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress and sent off for publication. It w [...]

Five Reasons Companies Should NOT Conduct Their Own Forensic Investigations

james.crane@altep.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Corporate counsel is always dealing with the challenges of controlling costs and providing their corporate client with the most defensible position. One question that always comes up is "why shouldn't we just collect our own data?" It's a good question. Many corporations have an IT department staffed with talented and available personnel.

The short answer is that sometimes, in-house IT is the "logical" choice [...]

Even the Greatest Thinkers Are Not Always Right

james.crane@altep.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Aristotle thought that earthquakes were caused by subterranean winds. OK, so he was a little off, according the USGS - tectonic plate movement simply fell outside his realm of experience. Like Aristotle, though, many attorneys think their methods are as good as it gets. What we attorn [...]

Massachusetts Sues H&R Block Over Subprime Mortgages

james.crane@altep.com — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Whether the subprime mortgage situation is a crisis is the subject of debate. What we are able to do to help stem the increase in foreclosures is worth examining. What is clear, is that states are taking the problem very seriously and are aggressively going after lenders associated with subprime loans. On June 3 rd, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley joined in the subprime fray, filing a 59 page Complaint against Option One Mortgage Corp. and its parent H&R Block [...]

Even a Divorce Can Trigger a Look Into a Corporation�s ESI

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0100

The June issue of the ABA Journal featured an article about how divorces are as ugly as ever despite the legal profession’s efforts to provide nuanced and sophisticated solutions like the “collaborative approach.” Because my practice focus is the defense of corporations, I was reminded how easily a company and its electronic data can get dragged into disputes despite no wrongdoing on its part. With so many company employees using portable technology belonging to the co [...]

This Day in Legal History

james.crane@altep.com — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

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

The first federal law of copyrights, the Copyright Act of 1790, was signed into law by George Washington on May 31, 1790. The goal of [...]

New Study Shows Outbound Emails Continue to Concern Corporations

james.crane@altep.com — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

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:

41% employ staff to read or analyze outbound email. 22% employ staff whose primary job is to read outbound email. 38% perform regular audits of outbound email. 44% investigated a suspected email leak of confidential information in the past year. 23% stated their business was impacted by the exposure of [...]

What is MD5?

james.crane@altep.com — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

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.

Blog Entries for James Crane