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Full-Text Articles in Law

Preservation: Competently Navigating Between All And Nothing, Lauren Wheeling Waller Jan 2016

Preservation: Competently Navigating Between All And Nothing, Lauren Wheeling Waller

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Merriam-Webster defines "competent" as "having requisite or adequate ability or qualities."' All professions require competence to be successful-from chefs, to tailors, to NFL quarterbacks. Without the adequate ability to poach an egg, alter suits, or read defenses, they lose patrons, customers, or-in the case of a quarterback-games and fans. Lawyers are no different. Without competence, they may not be successful. However, lawyers are different than the NFL quarterback in that they have an explicit duty of competence to their clients.


Getting Serious: Why Companies Must Adopt Information Governance Measures To Prepare For The Upcoming Changes To The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Philip J. Favro Jan 2014

Getting Serious: Why Companies Must Adopt Information Governance Measures To Prepare For The Upcoming Changes To The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Philip J. Favro

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

[W]ithout a corresponding change in discovery culture by courts, counsel and clients alike, the proposed rules modifications will likely have little to no effect on the manner in which discovery is conducted today.


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And Contextualizing Precedents In E-Discovery: The Illusion Of Stare Decisis And Best Practices To Avoid Reliance On Outdated Guidance, Jonathan M. Redgrave, Keltie Hays Peay, Mathea K.E. Bulander Jan 2014

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And Contextualizing Precedents In E-Discovery: The Illusion Of Stare Decisis And Best Practices To Avoid Reliance On Outdated Guidance, Jonathan M. Redgrave, Keltie Hays Peay, Mathea K.E. Bulander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


Defensible Data Deletion: A Practical Approach To Reducing Cost And Managing Risk Associated With Expanding Enterprise Data, Dennis R. Kiker Jan 2014

Defensible Data Deletion: A Practical Approach To Reducing Cost And Managing Risk Associated With Expanding Enterprise Data, Dennis R. Kiker

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Modern businesses are hosts to steadily increasing volumes of data, creating significant cost and risk while potentially compromising the current and future performance and stability of the information systems in which the data reside. To mitigate these costs and risks, many companies are considering initiatives to identify and eliminate information that is not needed for any business or legal purpose (a process referred to herein as “data remediation”). There are several challenges for any such initiative, the most significant of which may be the fear that information subject to a legal preservation obligation might be destroyed.


Finding The Signal In The Noise: Information Governance, Analytics, And The Future Of Legal Practice, Bennett B. Borden, Jason R. Baron Jan 2014

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 …


Cyborgs In The Courtroom: The Use Of Google Glass Recordings In Litigation, Kristin Bergman Jan 2014

Cyborgs In The Courtroom: The Use Of Google Glass Recordings In Litigation, Kristin Bergman

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The future is now. Wearable computers such as Google Glass (Glass) have begun entering society—we see people wearing these devices on the streets, in classrooms, at parties, and elsewhere. Though most of these devices are not yet available to the public at large, there has been much hype over the impact Glass will have on our interactions, privacy, safety, and more. Although this Article will briefly address such controversial aspects, it will focus more narrowly on the potential utility of Glass in litigation.


Databases Lie! Successfully Managing Structured Data, The Oft-Overlooked Esi, Conrad Jacoby, Jim Vint, Michael Simon Jan 2013

Databases Lie! Successfully Managing Structured Data, The Oft-Overlooked Esi, Conrad Jacoby, Jim Vint, Michael Simon

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Legal professionals regularly advise clients to ensure that the storage, retention, and accessibility of their Electronically-Stored Information (“ESI”) is in full compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements in the event this information becomes relevant in civil, criminal, or regulatory disputes. However, what many practitioners may not realize is that the ESI that clients are required to produce for e- discovery includes both “unstructured” and “structured” data. Searching and producing only one of these types of ESI may well not fully satisfy a client’s full discovery obligations. Even worse, it might not present a full understanding of the factual issues …


Ghost In The Machine: Zubulake Revisited And Other Emerging E-Discovery Issues Under The Amended Federal Rules, William P. Barnette Jan 2012

Ghost In The Machine: Zubulake Revisited And Other Emerging E-Discovery Issues Under The Amended Federal Rules, William P. Barnette

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

We live in a digital age. Electronically stored information (“ESI”) “is commonplace in our personal lives and in the operation of businesses, public entities, and private organizations.” By now the numbers no longer shock: “more than 90% of all corporate information is electronic; North American businesses exchange over 2.5 trillion e-mails per year;5 today, less than 1% of all communication will ever appear in paper form; and, on average, a 1000-person corporation will generate nearly 2 million e-mails annually.”


Technology-Assisted Document Review: Is It Defensible?, William W. Belt, Dennis R. Kiker, Daryl E. Shetterly Jan 2012

Technology-Assisted Document Review: Is It Defensible?, William W. Belt, Dennis R. Kiker, Daryl E. Shetterly

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Technology has changed the way we communicate and, in so doing, has changed the discovery phase of litigation. Parties must sift through ever-growing data volumes to find relevant material, significantly increasing time and cost requirements. Technology has also changed the way attorneys meet discovery demands. New technologies like “machine learning” and “predictive coding” give lawyers important new tools to manage the growing volume of electronically stored information (“ESI”).


Admissibility Of Non-U.S. Electronic Evidence, Kenneth N. Rashbaum, Matthew F. Knouff, Dominique Murray Jan 2012

Admissibility Of Non-U.S. Electronic Evidence, Kenneth N. Rashbaum, Matthew F. Knouff, Dominique Murray

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

After two long years collecting hundreds of gigabytes of e-mail, data base reports, and social media posts from countries in Europe, Asia, and South America, such as France, South Korea, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and El Salvador, the day of trial has arrived. The trial team has obtained the data at great cost, in dollars as well as person-hours, but is finally ready for trial. First-chair counsel, second-chair counsel, and four paralegals file into the courtroom, not with bankers boxes full of documents as in earlier times, but with laptops, tablet computers, and a data projector. Following opening statements, the first …


Forensic Collection Of Electronic Evidence From Infrastructure-As-A-Service Cloud Computing, Josiah Dykstra, Damien Riehl Jan 2012

Forensic Collection Of Electronic Evidence From Infrastructure-As-A-Service Cloud Computing, Josiah Dykstra, Damien Riehl

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

As cloud computing becomes ubiquitous, the criminal targeting and criminal use of cloud computing is inevitable and imminent. Similarly, the need for civil forensic analyses of cloud computing has become more prevalent. Forensic investigation of cloud computing matters first requires an understanding of the technology and issues associated with the collection of electronically stored information (“ESI”) in the cloud. The misuse of the broad term “cloud computing” has caused some confusion and misinformation among legal and technology scholars, leading to a muddied and incomplete analysis of cloud-based discovery issues. Cases and academic analyses have dealt primarily with popular online services …


Technologies-That-Must-Not-Be-Named: Understanding And Implementing Advanced Search Technologies In E-Discovery, Jacob Tingen Jan 2012

Technologies-That-Must-Not-Be-Named: Understanding And Implementing Advanced Search Technologies In E-Discovery, Jacob Tingen

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were created to promote the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Unfortunately, in the world of e-discovery, case determinations are often anything but speedy and inexpensive. The manual review process is notoriously one of the most expensive parts of litigation. Beyond expense, the time and effort required to carry out large-scale manual review places an immense burden on parties, nearly destroying the possibility of assessing the merits of early settlement before expensive review has already been carried out.


The Admissibility Of Electronic Evidence Under The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Jonathan D. Frieden, Leigh M. Murray Jan 2011

The Admissibility Of Electronic Evidence Under The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Jonathan D. Frieden, Leigh M. Murray

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Following the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, much has been written about the discovery of electronically-stored information.


Technology-Assisted Review In E-Discovery Can Be More Effective And More Efficient Than Exhaustive Manual Review, Maura R. Grossman, Gordon V. Cormack Jan 2011

Technology-Assisted Review In E-Discovery Can Be More Effective And More Efficient Than Exhaustive Manual Review, Maura R. Grossman, Gordon V. Cormack

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

E-discovery processes that use automated tools to prioritize and select documents for review are typically regarded as potential cost-savers – but inferior alternatives – to exhaustive manual review, in which a cadre of reviewers assesses every document for responsiveness to a production request, and for privilege. This Article offers evidence that such technology-assisted processes, while indeed more efficient, can also yield results superior to those of exhaustive manual review, as measured by recall and precision, as well as F1, a summary measure combining both recall and precision. The evidence derives from an analysis of data collected from the TREC 2009 …


Four Years Later: How The 2006 Amendments To The Federal Rules Have Reshaped The E-Discovery Landscape And Are Revitalizing The Civil Justice System, Bennett B. Borden, Monica Mccarroll, Brian C. Vick, Lauren M. Wheeling Jan 2011

Four Years Later: How The 2006 Amendments To The Federal Rules Have Reshaped The E-Discovery Landscape And Are Revitalizing The Civil Justice System, Bennett B. Borden, Monica Mccarroll, Brian C. Vick, Lauren M. Wheeling

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which were enacted to address the potentially immense burden involved in the discovery of electronically-stored information (“ESI”), set in motion a process that is revitalizing the primary purpose of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure adopted nearly seventy years earlier: “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” One of the principal means through which the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure achieve this purpose is by allowing for the discovery of “any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense.” The reasoning …


Enforcement Of U.S. Electronic Discovery Law Against Foreign Companies: Should U.S. Courts Give Effect To The Eu Data Protection Directive?, Kristen A. Knapp Jan 2010

Enforcement Of U.S. Electronic Discovery Law Against Foreign Companies: Should U.S. Courts Give Effect To The Eu Data Protection Directive?, Kristen A. Knapp

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Enforcing discovery against companies located in foreign nations is not a new phenomenon. The U.S. Supreme Court took up the conflict between U.S. discovery rules and foreign non-disclosure law in a 1958 case. Despite more than fifty years to reach a settled jurisprudence regarding how to enforce U.S. law against foreign domiciled companies, there has yet to be a clear articulation of a standard applicable in all cases. Currently, there are two main sets of rules under which U.S. courts may enforce discovery laws against foreign companies, and if necessary impose sanctions for non-compliance: the Hague Convention and the U.S. …


Time For An Upgrade: Amending The Federal Rules Of Evidence To Address The Challenges Of Electronically Stored Information In Civil Litigation, Jonathan L. Moore Jan 2010

Time For An Upgrade: Amending The Federal Rules Of Evidence To Address The Challenges Of Electronically Stored Information In Civil Litigation, Jonathan L. Moore

Law Student Publications

In recent years, electronically stored information (ESI) has begun to play an increasingly important role in civil litigation. Although the e-discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2006 provided guidelines for the discovery of this information, no accompanying changes were made to the Federal Rules of Evidence to govern the admissibility of this information at trial. This article outlines the vastly different ways courts have addressed this problem in three areas: authentication, hearsay, and the best evidence rule. After discussing the various approaches courts take in these areas, this article proposes specific amendments to the Federal Rules …


The Expanding Duties Of Esi And In-House Counsel: Providing Defensible Preservation And Production Efforts After Swofford V. Eslinger, David W. Degnan Jan 2010

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 …


A Search For Balance In The Discovery Of Esi Since December 1, 2006, Douglas L. Roger Jan 2008

A Search For Balance In The Discovery Of Esi Since December 1, 2006, Douglas L. Roger

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

An explosion in the amount and discovery of electronically stored information (ESI) threatens to clog the federal court system and make judicial determination of the substantive merits of disputes an endangered species. It is interesting that this information discovery explosion has skipped over Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides in part that the federal rules “shall be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.”


In Pursuit Of Frcp 1: Creative Approaches To Cutting And Shifting The Costs Of Discovery, Mia Mazza, Emmalena K. Quesada, Ashley L. Sternberg Jan 2007

In Pursuit Of Frcp 1: Creative Approaches To Cutting And Shifting The Costs Of Discovery, Mia Mazza, Emmalena K. Quesada, Ashley L. Sternberg

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The most important rule of all is the last sentence of [FRCP] 1, which provides that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ‘shall be construed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.’ It is this command that gives all the other rules life and meaning and timbre in the realist world of the trial court.