Law Commons^™

The Missing Links: Why Hyperlinks Must Be Treated As Attachments In Electronic Discovery, Lea Malani Bays, Stuart A. Davidson

University of Cincinnati Law Review

This Article sheds light on a unique but centrally important “twenty-first century” issue involving electronic discovery in federal civil litigation that is just beginning to percolate in federal district courts. Historically, courts have held that a document attached to or enclosed with another document must be produced together when produced in response to a discovery request, as that is how the document was “kept in the usual course of business” and how it is “ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form,” as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have required for decades. Today, parties are pushing back on whether …

Understanding And Contextualizing Precedents In E-Discovery: The Illusion Of Stare Decisis And Best Practices To Avoid Reliance On Outdated Guidance, Jonathan M. Redgrave, Keltie Hays Peay, Mathea K.E. Bulander

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

But as precedents survive like the clavicle in the cat, long after the use they once served is at an end, and the reason for them has been forgotten, the result of following them must often be failure and confusion from the merely logical point of view.

Finding The Signal In The Noise: Information Governance, Analytics, And The Future Of Legal Practice, Bennett B. Borden, Jason R. Baron

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

In the watershed year of 2012, the world of law witnessed the first concrete discussion of how predictive analytics may be used to make legal practice more efficient. That the conversation about the use of predictive analytics has emerged out of the e-Discovery sector of the law is not all that surprising: in the last decade and with increasing force since 2006— with the passage of revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that expressly took into account the fact that lawyers must confront “electronically stored information” in all its varieties—there has been a growing recognition among courts and commentators that …

Man Versus Machine Review: The Showdown Between Hordes Of Discovery Lawyers And A Computer-Utilizing Predictive-Coding Technology, Nicholas Barry

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The discovery process is regularly capturing millions of pages of documents. Electronic storage is making storing documents cheaper and easier. When litigation begins, however, sorting through this massive amount of electronically stored information is costly and time intensive. Keyword searches are a start to managing the growing amount of electronic documents, but the discovery process is still falling behind in efficiency. Predictive coding could change all that.

Predictive coding is capable of solving the time-intensive nature (and resultant growing cost) of processing discovery documents. Predictive coding is faster, cheaper, and more accurate than traditional linear document review, the current "gold …

Law In The Age Of Exabytes: Some Further Thoughts On ‘Information Inflation’ And Current Issues In E-Discovery Search, Jason R. Baron

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

In 2007, in the pages of this Journal, George L. Paul and I posed a question to the legal profession at large, to wit: can the legal system adapt to the new reality of an era of rapid inflation in the amount of electronically stored information (ESI) at issue in civil litigation? After surveying the history of technological innovation that led to an explosion of new data, we proceeded to discuss various legal strategies for success in our current inflationary epoch. These strategies included: consideration of new and emerging ways in which to think about search and information retrieval in …

The Expanding Duties Of Esi And In-House Counsel: Providing Defensible Preservation And Production Efforts After Swofford V. Eslinger, David W. Degnan

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

As a general rule, companies and government agencies should plan for preservation and production before litigation is probable. This means having a document retention program. These programs ensure that documents are retained or deleted in an orderly fashion. If a company properly follows its policies and procedures, this retention program acts as a “shield” against the incomplete preservation of relevant (or “hot”) documents deleted before the proper initiation of a litigation hold. If parties do not follow, or inconsistently follow, such a program, they might have to explain what happened to a missing relevant document. Thus, a retention program might …

The 2006 Amendments To The Rules Of Civil Procedure: Accessible And Inaccessible Electronic Information Storage Devices, Why Parties Should Store Electronic Information In Accessible Formats, Benjamin D. Silbert

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Discovery jurisprudence is a cornerstone of civil litigation in the United States. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as adopted in 1938, introduced a broad discovery process, which was not a previously accepted practice. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have been revised several times since 1938, reflecting the evolution of society. However, prior to 2006, 1970 was the last time the discovery rules were amended to take into account changes in information technology. In the last thirty-seven years, technological advances in electronic storage and communication have changed the way people live and how business is conducted, beyond what could …

A Duty Everlasting: The Perils Of Applying Traditional Doctrines Of Spoliation To Electronic Discovery, Michael R. Nelson, Mark H. Rosenberg

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding electronic discovery are expected to take effect on December 1, 2006. These amendments are designed to alleviate the burden, expense and uncertainty that has resulted from the application of traditional discovery principles in the electronic age. These principles worked well in an era where discovery was primarily limited to the production of paper documentation, but have proved unworkable when applied to the discovery of electronic data, particularly in the “corporate world,” where even the most routine business discussions are captured in electronic format.5

Shifting Burdens And Concealing Electronic Evidence: Discovery In The Digital Era, Rebecca Rockwood

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

In the twenty-first century, persons involved in the legal profession will be forced to confront technological issues. Computers and technology have pervaded every aspect of society, and the legal system is no exception. The discovery process is a dramatic example of how lawyers and courts strain to keep up with technological advances. Traditional discovery practices have been severely overhauled as electronic information becomes increasingly prevalent. What was once a simple discovery request can now become an overwhelming task, as defendants must wade through a plethora of electronic documents in an attempt to comply with the court’s discovery orders.

Zubulake V. Ubs Warburg: Evidence That The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure Provide The Means For Determining Cost Allocation In Electronic Discovery Disputes, Bahar Shariati

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States V. Keystone Sanitation Company: E-Mail And The Attorney-Client Privilege, Karen M. Coon

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The rapid growth and sophistication of technology have changed the way people communicate. E-mail and the Internet have begun to affect the way attorneys communicate with their clients. E-mail is fast and convenient, but it is not without risks. The risk of illegal interception and the risk of inadvertent disclosure are serious issues that attorneys need to be aware of and try to prevent so that the attorney-client privilege is protected as much as possible. Although communicating with a client by e-mail may be risky, the risks posed by e-mail are no different from those posed by communicating by postal …