Crane on Law by James Crane

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

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

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. 

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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 attorneys have to learn is that there is always room for improvement.  This is especially true with legal technology tools.  Advances in scanning and optical character recognition, and new efficiencies in capturing and organizing digital data allow the technologically astute practitioner to nimbly navigate through a tangled jungle of documents.  This saves the client money and ensures more accurate discovery. 

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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. You can see a copy of the complaint here.

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We can expect that litigation over subprime mortgages is going to increase into the near future. Plaintiff firms have either already brought actions or are putting together their playbook. Additionally, attorneys general in New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts have sued lenders and appraisers. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division are also active in this area. Corporate counsel across nearly every industry should examine the issues and evaluate whether their client will have exposure in the fallout.

Last year, federal banking regulators provided guidance to lenders regarding non-traditional or subprime mortgage products in the Interagency Guidance on Nontraditional Mortgage Product Risks and the Statement on Subprime Mortgage Lending. These guidelines address underwriting standards, risk management practices, consumer protection issues, and control systems. This has been adopted by most lenders and will likely constitute the plaintiffs playbook for the subsequent lawsuits regarding predatory lending practices.

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I still get asked questions about de-duplication: What is it? Why is it important? So, in order to please those folks, as well as those who have not asked yet, here’s a quick summary.

De-duplication is the process of reducing a data population by identifying and removing duplicate emails and/or non-email files. The digital signatures (MD5 hash codes) of each file are compared against each other and matches are marked as duplicates. Files marked as duplicates can be suppressed from further processing. For those that are suppressed, Altep maintains an audit trail for 100% file accountability. Reducing the population by de-duping is a critical success factor in keeping the overall litigation costs down by reducing processing costs and attorney review time.