Blog Entries tagged 'EDiscovery'

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.

The Consequences of Production Gaps

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

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.

The sanctions for spoliation vary based on culpability and the [...]

Interesting Insight from the Bench

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

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.

Some of my f [...]

Heading to the 5 th E-Discovery Conference in Las Vegas Next Week

james.crane@altep.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:00:00 +0100

The Altep team is heading to Las Vegas next week to attend the IQPC 5 th E-Discovery Conference and present our program entitled "Defending Class Actions Across Multiple Jurisdictions." I will be moderating a talented panel with decades of experience in e-discovery, serial litigation, using technology in large-scale actions. We’ll talk about considerations prior to class action certification, all the way through productions in multiple jurisdictions. We&r [...]

A Quick Trip to Tampa to See Some Great Legal Professionals

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

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting Altep’s Quarterly e-Discovery Case Law Update to the Tampa Bay Paralegals Association at the Tampa Club. (TBPA = http://www.tbpa.org/ and Tampa Club = http://www.thetampaclub.com/tampa_club.htm). It was a great venue and an outstanding group of people. I have to offer a special thanks to Yvonne DeAntoneo and Leslie Matthews!! I look forward to presenting a review of online review platforms at their fall technology confere [...]

Breaking Down the Cost of e-Discovery

james.crane@altep.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:00:00 +0100

I could go many different directions with a headline about the costs of e-discovery. I could discuss cost-saving techniques, like I did here (http://www.altep.com/content/view/3/52/). I could explain how you often “get what you pay for” … you know there’s a reason why that vendor charges 50% less than all of the competitors…

However, the focus today is just to break down the basic categories of cost associated with ex [...]

Finding the New Ways to Use Technological Innovations to Improve Litigation Efforts

james.crane@altep.com — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Many attorneys are in the very early stages of accepting technological tools to deal with massive discovery challenges. Even in cases involving more than a hundred thousand documents, counsel still asks that digital documents be blown-back to paper for review, and then produced as paper to the opposing party. My question is, WHY? I can only assume that it's due to lack of training and knowlege regarding use of the available technologies, and people's sense of com [...]

Tip of the Hat to My Honorary Chief Information Officer (posthumously)

james.crane@altep.com — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Do you know this man? I have asked that question in a presentation and I’ve had “John McCain” shouted out more than once.

But it's not Senator McCain. It's Martin Lomasney. He was a Boston political boss at the turn of the 20th cen [...]

The Top 5 Challenges of Accounting for Digital Data Versus Paper

james.crane@altep.com — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0100

As promised yesterday, here are the top 5 challenges the Civil Rules Advisory Committee faced when revising the Federal Rules to account for Electronically Stored Information (ESI).

First, with traditional paper discovery, either the paper existed, or it did not. You could burn it, shred it, lose it, throw it away, or feed it to your dog, but at the end of the day, either you had it to produce, or you did not. With ESI, data may be int [...]

Demystifying e-Discovery

james.crane@altep.com — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0100

More than a year has passed since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to account for Electronically Stored Information (ESI) on December 1, 2006, and an enormous amount of explaining, decrying, discussion and analysis has surrounded them since that day. I have been on the receiving end of countless emails promoting e-discovery CLEs, seminars, workshops, webinars and conferences. It seems like every month, someone hosts the Annual e-Discovery Conference That [...]