Notable Articles in E-Discovery 1/23/13

“Act Reasonably” — Two Court-Issued Checklists Outlining Defensible, Targeted ESI Collection (John Patzakis)

"Recently two separate and prominent courts — the federal court for the Northern District of California and the Delaware Court of Chancery (which is the primary court of equity for Delaware registered corporations) issued eDiscovery preservation guidelines. This is not unprecedented as other courts have issued similar written guidance in the form of general guidance or even more enforceable local rules of court specifically addressing eDiscovery protocols. What I found particularly interesting, however, is both courts provided fairly specific guidance on the scope of collection and preservation. In the case of the California court, which notes that its “guidelines are designed to establish best practices for evidence preservation in the digital age,” the Court offers a checklist for Rule 26(f) “meet and confer” conferences with good detail on suggested ESI preservation protocols. The Delaware Court of Chancery also issued a detailed checklist or “sample collection outline.” ESI preservation checklists are useful practice guides, and these are sanctioned by two separate influential courts."

Company emails are key in Apple, Google hiring case, judge says (Dan Levine)

"SAN JOSE, Calif, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Internal emails show that executives at tech companies such as Apple and Google believed that an agreement to refrain from poaching each other's workers would bring real financial benefits, a U.S. judge said on Thursday.

Five former employees of various tech companies have filed a civil lawsuit against Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Corp and others, alleging an illegal conspiracy to eliminate competition for each other's employees."

Court approves discovery questionnaire seeking social media information (Jesse Dill)

Employers and in-house counsel facing class-wide litigation received a welcome opinion from the District of Colorado to kick-off the new year. InEEOC v. The Original Honeybaked Ham Co. of Georgia, Inc., the court approved a questionnaire for claimants to identify numerous sources of electronic information, including that which could be used to access social media accounts.