Notable Articles in E-Discovery - Winter 2012

Managing the Risks and Costs of E-Discovery in Multiple Related Investigations and Litigations (Mayer Brown)

"Effective planning, strategic negotiations and appropriate disclosure are the keys to satisfying investigators and plaintiffs that an organization has complied with its preservation and production obligations while controlling costs.  The key is maintaining control--an organization should be proactive and try to dictate the terms of the preservation, collection, and production of data.  While obtaining and maintaining control can be very difficult to accomplish, particularly with regulators and government agencies, it is possible to do so if an organization, and its outside counsel, has a comprehensive understanding of the issues, the data addressing those issues and the location of key data within your organization."

A Basic eDiscovery Framework: One Way To Align Three Differing Approaches (@complexD)

"The Basic eDiscovery Offering Framework is designed to help eDiscovery professionals cohesively consider how to share and compare service and product information as it relates to the conduct of eDiscovery regardless of the steps, model or best practices used by practitioners."

 Predictive Technologies May Avert Potential Data Archiving Trainwreck (Wyatt Cash)

"Recognizing that agencies were failing to keep up with the explosive shift from paper to digitally-generated information across the federal government, the Obama administration issued a landmark directive a year ago Nov. 28 aimed at moving federal record-keeping fully into the digital age...NARA is expected to issue a new set of simplified document disposition policies that will include the use of automated tools. The new policy represents an effort to make it easier for agencies and employees to separate permanent documents from temporary ones."

Q&A: Social media data collection increasingly vital to e-discovery (Ben Cole)

"The explosion of social media use for business purposes has created numerous new challenges for companies -- especially from a litigation and regulatory compliance standpoint...One big problem is that, despite not much precedent for social media case law, companies are increasingly responsible for the collection and preservation of social media content, according to eDJ Group co-founder and analyst Barry Murphy. In this Q&A, Murphy discusses the importance of social media data collection in today's business environment, the evolution of social media preservation for e-discovery purposes, and what future social networking compliance rules could look like."

Notable Articles in E-Discovery - Fall 2012

E-discovery: 4 scenarios that call for computer forensics (Inside Counsel)

Not every case needs forensic collection and analysis.  This article points out 4 scenarios where you should consider doing a forensic (rather than targeted) collection and possible analysis.

Are social media e-discovery's next nightmare? (ComputerWorld)

"The arrival of social media is in many ways a repeat of those challenges. As was true of email, social media comes with new metadata and formats. But because of the similarities, there is an opportunity to avoid the mistakes made with email. One thing is clear: Companies that dive into social media without the right policies and solutions to govern usage will encounter information governance and e-discovery nightmares down the road."

E-discovery evolved: Smart searching (Inside Counsel)

"Successful e-discovery exercises often leverage technology to complement human analysis and advocacy skills. By implementing a smart, multi-faceted approach, advances in technologies can effectively narrow the scope of review and find an appropriate number of relevant documents while limiting inadvertent disclosures. To establish the most effective process possible, counsel should work with their technology providers to identify best practices and strategies to bolster a smart searching protocol."

Mobile Device Discovery Stories from the Experts (eDiscovery Journal)

"The deeper I delve into the world of mobile device discovery, the more parallels I see between these devices and Cloud sources/services. Every week we speak with corporations and law firms whose ESI is increasingly fleeing the corporate IT castle to live in the Cloud and be accessed by a global, remote workforce. Discovery teams are struggling to catch up with simple email servers, network shares, IM chat and other in-house ESI sources while that ESI is migrating to ‘mini computers’ in user pockets and ‘mega computers’ distributed across the globe. I am afraid that business IT is evolving faster than the legal business. Corporate legal must collaborate and integrate with IT to keep informed of changing technologies and user demands before they become nightmare realities. These challenges can be met, but only by proactive team effort with executive mandates."

Show Me the Money – Proposed Rule Changes Take on the Spiraling Costs of Discovery (eDiscovery Insight)

"In 2013, suggested changes to discovery rules on both sides of the Atlantic highlight the increasing concerns shared by Americans and their British neighbors over litigation costs, as well as each region’s unique attempts to address them.  Predictably, the proposed revisions are steeped in debate and all about cost control."