Featured Articles

• August 21, 2008

  Microsoft Search Technology for the Legal Industry

  Legal professionals are surrounded by information. In fact, they are buried in it. From online legal research, to firm client and matter information, to the hundreds or thousands of documents produced each day, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get to the information needed in order to practice law effectively.
  (read more)

• August 12, 2008

  Current E-Discovery Trends

  By now, practically everyone even remotely involved in litigation in the United States knows that discovery of electronic information, E-Discovery, has become a very big deal, especially in light of related amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure enacted more than a year ago.
  (read more)

• July 23, 2008

  eDiscovery Vendors and Preserving Chain Of Custody

  While sounding so deceptively simple, many chain of custody issues are actually quite challenging to legally uphold when it comes to electronic evidence. This is because, for purposes of authenticity, all potentially relevant electronic data must be accounted for from the discovery phase all the way though trial. At trial, it is crucial to physically document the chain of custody of all potentially relevant data to disprove any actual or possible tampering.
  (read more)

• July 01, 2008

  9th Circuit Ups the Ante for Disclosure of Employee Text Messages in Quon v. Arch Wireless

  In a ruling on June 18th, a panel of the 9th Circuit held that a provider of text messaging services violated the Stored Communications Act by turning over the contents of an employee's text messages to his employer, the Ontario, California Police Department.
  (read more)

• June 24, 2008

  Requests for Missing White House Emails Denied

  A federal judge in Washington, D.C. recently denied requests for government information relating to missing White House emails. The judge made the ruling on the basis that the Office of Administration (OA) does not constitute an "agency" within the ambit of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). How did this happen?
  (read more)

• June 17, 2008

  Document Production: Removing Private Information On A Bulk Basis

  We live in a day and age of massive productions of documents and electronic data. Governmental entities have affirmative obligations to produce information pursuant to open access laws like the Freedom of Information Act. And parties in litigation constantly are subject to intrusive discovery requests.
  (read more)

• May 13, 2008

  Applying Judicial Common Sense to Electronic Discovery Burdens

  Since the enactment of the electronic discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in late-2006, parties have been paranoid that the scope of their production obligations would be gargantuan, and that they would be compelled to search for and provide a wide array of electronic information, at a tremendous financial cost.
  (read more)

• May 06, 2008

  Corporate America And Uncle Sam Need To Wake Up To E-Discovery and E-FOIA Obligations, Part Two

  In this article, FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod examines the responsibilities of the government and private enterprise pertaining to electronic information under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for electronic discovery and the Freedom of Information Act. This installment addresses the Freedom of Information Act; Part One covered electronic discovery issues.
  (read more)

• May 06, 2008

  Metadata: Ethical Obligations of the Witting and Unwitting Recipient

  As shown in our last column, software commonly used by lawyers often creates embedded data, otherwise known as metadata. As previously discussed, there are means to avoid creating embedded data, as well as means available to remove hidden data already created. In theory, at least, it is possible to remove all metadata prior to sending a document to opposing counsel.
  (read more)