Discovery Resources

Steamy messages from the South Carolina governor to his lover in Argentina didn’t stay private. Take a lesson, experts say: Employers often monitor e-mail, and text messages can be trouble too. Continue

by Nancy Patton, J.D.; Consultant; Fios, Inc.

Recent economic circumstances have forced many companies to make difficult decisions about personnel levels – reductions in force are part of almost every organization’s reality these days.  In law firms alone, it is estimated there have been upwards of 10,000 lay-offs nationwide this year.  It’s neither feasible nor practical to preserve the data of every departing employee in the event it might be needed for litigation or regulatory purposes.  However, if your IT department is not clued into what to do about departing employees and their data, then nothing will be preserved … an even less desirable outcome.  If you haven’t already, you may continue…

Today we are looking at an estimated 210 billion messages sent every day worldwide. Yet experts say most companies fail to deal with the mounting amount of electronic data.  This article in the most recent issue of Workforce Management discusses the role of the HR department in managing this mess.

Abbott’s motion states:

“DOJ kept the lawsuit under seal for more than eleven years, conducting one-sided discovery against Abbott, but did nothing to preserve evidence in its own possession or control. “ Continue reading….

Kim Newman is a partner in O’Melveny’s Washington, DC office and a member of the Business Trial and Litigation and Electronic Discovery and Document Retention Practices recently wrote about sanctions that were imposed on outside counsel for Plaintiff Bray & Gillespie Management LLC for a “pattern of withholding and concealing information concerning discoverable material” from both the Court and opposing counsel.

The problems began with a failure to Object to the Request for ESI in Native Format and then failure to produce it. Continue reading….

A recent article in the Worcester Business Journal quotes Steven J. O’Neill, partner at the Worcester law firm of Bowditch & Dewey and founder of the firm’s eDiscovery and Document Retention Policy practice: “The rub is that few lawyers seem to know how to ask for it and how to go after it,”  Find out why you really should care.

RAND Europe led an international research team to review of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and proposed avenues for improvement.

The Directive can be regarded as a unique legal instrument in how it supports the exercise of a right to privacy and rules for personal data protection. It is regarded in many quarters as a reference model for personal data protection in Europe and beyond. Although the flexibility of the Directive helps it to remain current, its effectiveness is undermined by the complexity of the cultural and national differences across which it must operate.

“The goal of Directive is to remain valid in the face of new continue…

“The use of good project management skills during an e-discovery process can help you navigate your way through a mass of information.” This article, which discusses the role of Project Management in  e-discovery is from Legalweek.com, an online journal which is dedicated exclusively to commercial lawyers in the UK and major international jurisdictions.  The authors even reference The Ramones, which certainly adds flair to an article about eDisclosure, as it’s known there.
Read more here

“You know things are bad when the lawyers withdraw.”  So begins an interesting post from Steven Puiszis, Editor-in-Chief of the Practical Ediscovery blog. He continues, “In MeccaTech (MTI), the magistrate judge observed: “Misconduct of this magnitude is a rare occurrence.” It was determined through discovery that one of the defendants employed a consultant to intentionally erase items from his computer before he left MTI’s employment in attempt to shield his activities from discovery.” Read more about ediscovery going very badly here

PCWorld has a different take on addressing the e-discovery challenge – “It can be a storage nightmare: Given expanding regulatory requirements and the key role that electronic records now play in lawsuits, some enterprises are saving every bit of data they have, just to be safe. As a gauge of storage demand, IDC says the total amount of disk storage shipped last year grew 40.5 percent from 2007. “ 

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