Discovery Deadlines at Dial-Up Speeds: Clear Signs You Need an e-Discovery Service Provider Friday, 3 September 2010

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EDEN Offers Free E-Discovery Webcast – learn the fundamentals Friday, 3 September 2010

On Thursday, September 9th at 12pm Pacific, EDEN (the Electronic Data Extraction Network) will present a free webcast called “Fundamentals of Electronic Discovery.” The presentation will feature in-depth exploration of the Electronic Discovery Funnel and will provide Tips for Success for each step of the e-discovery lifecycle. Live instant messaging and Q&A sessions encourage audience participation.

Webcasts are open to the public, and space is limited. To register, please send an email to registration@edenhub.com and include your contact information.

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ILTA TECH PURCHASING SURVEY Friday, 3 September 2010

ILTA and InsideLegal have released the results of the 7th annual "ILTA Member Technology Purchasing Survey." The 43-question web-based survey yielded 109 firm responses, with 84% from the U.S. and 16% from Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.Among the highlights of this year's poll:• 45% of respondents report that their firms are already back to normal financially• 6% expect to be there in another year• 17% have implemented cloud computing;• 49% use Microsoft's SharePoint internally, and 24% use it as a collaboration tool for clients and other external communications;• 69% were offered vendor discounts last year, and 20% received free services from their tech vendors;• biggest challenges: e-mail management, staffing, and storage.For a free copy of the survey analysis, visit www.InsideLegal.com.

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New York lawmakers propose legislation to enforce archiving for governor’s emails Friday, 3 September 2010

“A recent proposal will mandate the current and future governors of New York to use an email archiving solution that will offer permanent access to important documents, the Times Union reports.The most recent proposal marks the second-consecutive year New York lawmakers have passed legislation that creates more strict regulations forcing governors to submit emails to state archives. The bill’s proponents have stressed the historical benefits of integrating a government email archiving solution.“Without documentation from successive governors’ administrations, the history of New York state is, and will remain, incomplete,” said Camille Jobin-Davis, assistant director of the state Committee on Open Government, in a memo in support of the bill, the news provider reports.Lawmakers have been pushing for improved documentation of state government emails for the past year in an effort to fill a current void in the state’s information management requirements. Jobin-Davis criticized the state’s current email regulations and said they provide “minimal” guidance by allowing governments to freely destroy emails.”The entire article can be read hereEmail archiving has become an important tool to ensure transparency among government agencies. Citizens want to be able to have access to all areas of how their government is run. Email archiving ensures government agencies, including governors, are making their records available for review.

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Redémarrage d'écriture, après une pause hors de mon contrôle Friday, 3 September 2010

En mars dernier, je déposais la version finale du plan de rédaction de mon futur livre sur Le schéma hiérarchique de classification des documents administratifs : conception, développement et application. J’annonçais aussi le début de sa rédaction. Des événements professionnels m’ont obligé à retarder l’exercice. Avec la rentrée, j’en amorce donc l’écriture. Comme dans le cas de la production de mon ouvrage précédent, La gestion intégrée des documents (GID) en format papier et technologiques, je diffuserai chaque semaine l’état d’avancement de l’écriture. Tout au long du processus, je vous invite à me transmettre vos commentaires et vos suggestions. J’espère compléter le tout pour un lancement au printemps 2011.

Michel Roberge

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | Michel Roberge<br>Conseiller principal <br>en gestion intégrée des documents (GID)

302 – Il y a 35 ans… Friday, 3 September 2010

Je me permets ici un billet personnel et j’espère que vous ne m’en tiendrai pas rigueur.

En 1975, je faisais mes premiers pas dans le métier. Ceux d’un débutant sans expérience, fraîchement diplômé de l’Université Laval et embauché, par cette même université, à titre d’archiviste. Avec comme seule formation spécifique dans un domaine qui en était encore à ces premiers balbutiements : un cours et un stage d’été en archivistique.

Au Service des archives où j’occupais mon premier bureau de travail, service dirigé par un collègue d’études, Guy Dinel, qui n’avait pas plus d’expertise, de connaissances et de savoir-faire que moi, je fus impliqué dans un des volets qui ont marqué ma carrière : poursuivre le déploiement du « Plan de classement uniforme » dans les unités administratives de la première institution universitaire francophone en Amérique. Je me rappelle encore de mes premières journées de travail, particulièrement celle au cours de laquelle je devais donner une entrevue au journal d’information du campus, Le fil des événements : j’étais si timide que j’en perdais le souffle dans mes réponses aux questions du journaliste.

À cette époque, je ne pouvais imaginer que 35 ans plus tard, je poursuivrais une carrière centrée plus particulièrement sur la recherche de la qualité et de l’efficience des schémas de classification hiérarchiques pour les documents administratifs et que j’animerais un jour un blogue sur la gestion des documents en format papier et technologiques! Et au cours de ces 35 années, j’ai aussi été témoin de l’évolution technologique qui a progressivement coloré les pratiques de gestion documentaire.

35 années de périodes d’engouement ponctuées d’épisodes de frustrations dans l’action, une vie professionnelle normale, en somme. Autant d’années au cours desquelles j’ai été témoin de l’évolution des concepts théoriques, du métier dans des expériences pratiques enrichissantes tant à l’Université Laval qu’au gouvernement du Québec et aux Archives nationales du Québec (ANQ) et depuis 1985, dans l’entreprise que j’ai créée : Gestar Solutions documentaires. Un parcours professionnel qui m’a aussi permis de transmettre le peu de connaissances acquises sur le terrain, entre autres au CEGEP François-Xavier Garneau de Québec, à l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) et dans un certain nombre d’universités catalanes.

Parmi mes meilleurs souvenirs : ma rencontre avec le premier ministre du Québec, monsieur René Lévesque, lors de l’inauguration officielle de la Maison des archives (ANQ-Québec) au cours de laquelle il m’a remis un dollar en échange des photocopies du contrat de mariage de son ancêtre; le lancement en 1983 de mon premier livre sur La gestion des documents administratifs pour lequel j’ai reçu un prix de l’Association des archivistes du Québec (AAQ) et qui, quelques années plus tard, fut traduit en catalan; ma rencontre avec monsieur Jean Favier, Archiviste national de France, dans la Galerie des glaces du Palais de Versailles lors du Congrès international des archives de Paris en 1988; la rencontre de quatre archivistes catalans, lors du même congrès, rencontre qui m’a fait découvrir par la suite la Catalogne; les soirées de cours sur la gestion des documents administratifs dans les locaux historiques des Archives de la Couronne d’Aragon (faut le faire!); les échanges avec madame Favier, Inspectrice générale des archives de France, lors d’un congrès de l’Association des archivistes catalans, à Andorre, qui déclarait « par rapport à ce que vient d’énoncer monsieur Roberge, la France pense plutôt que… »; l’ovation debout d’une de mes classes à l’UQÀM à la fin d’une session; la réception du Mérite du français dans les TI; et combien d’autres événements qui ont marqué mon parcours…

Un de mes plus grands regrets : le non-renouvellement de mon contrat de professeur à l’UQÀM, officiellement parce que je n’avais toujours pas de diplôme d’études avancées avec l’appui d’un rapport d’évaluation d’un collègue archiviste (qui se reconnaîtra) qui n’avait jamais assisté à mes enseignements et qui les qualifiait de « trop techniques ». Comme si la formation universitaire ne devait être que théorique, tel que je l’ai récemment entendu sur les ondes radiophoniques.

Je ne peux terminer ce billet très personnel sans mentionner que plusieurs personnes « ont contribué à leur manière à la maîtrise du métier qui a occupé tout l’espace de ma vie professionnelle ». On en trouvera la liste à la toute fin de mon plus récent ouvrage sur La gestion intégrée des documents (GID). Parmi ceux-ci, je dois mentionner plus particulièrement Guy Dinel qui m’a ouvert la porte sur le métier et Robert Garon qui m’en a enseigné les rudiments, qui fut par la suite mon patron aux ANQ et, il y a quelques années mon employé à temps partiel chez Gestar, puis le réviseur, critique et correcteur de plusieurs de mes textes publiés.

Michel Roberge

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | Michel Roberge<br>Conseiller principal <br>en gestion intégrée des documents (GID)

e-Evidence Insights: ABC's Primetime Crime: Inside the Interrogation Room Friday, 3 September 2010

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Why you need a solid and defensible methodology when you bring eDiscovery in-house Friday, 3 September 2010

The main rewards of bringing eDiscovery in-house are very clear: reducing costs and controlling risks—for the current legal matter as well as future litigation. What we have seen in many cases is that the bill one can expect to receive for the legal review from an external law firm is often proportional with the amount of documents that are handed over in an eDiscovery process. This means that if you give outside counsel double the number of documents, your bill is likely to double as well. So, the more irrelevant documents you can justifiably filter out, the lower your external legal bill will be. This is mainly what organizations try to achieve when they bring eDiscovery in house.

A second objective is to be able to implement a quick and cost effective early case assessment before all documents are reviewed. This is essential to obtain a favorable settlement or to determine what the real issue is, where the legal risks are, and how liable one really is. By having all relevant documents searchable with a powerful exploratory search engine (http://zylab.wordpress.com/category/enterprise-search/), this goal can be achieved rather simply.

A third objective can be found in developing and implementing a method to reduce the overall information overload in an organization by implementing and enforcing proper records- and information management principles. This involves repurposing, transferring and destroying information according to proper retention schedules and filing plans (a.k.a. data maps). Implementing proper information governance and reducing your overall information overload helps to reduce your future eDiscovery exposure.

Penalties, fines and the cost of redoing the work can force you into an unfavorable settlement!

Responding to requests for electronic information can be perplexing. First, identifying responsive information from huge stores of data can be time consuming, disruptive, and costly. Second, extracting data from computers in ways that reliably preserve evidence is not a simple undertaking, as data can easily be altered either intentionally or accidentally. Recognizing these facts, litigators and investigators in both civil and criminal matters have begun to focus carefully on electronic discovery and the role of computer forensics — the science of reliably recovering and handling electronic storage media and the data contained therein so as to provide the appropriate foundations for admissible evidence.

Bringing eDiscovery in-house is a profitable and worthwhile initiative, but one which requires careful implementation,  quality control, auditing and a clear understand of how your eDiscovery technology works. If you bring eDiscovery in-house yet you handle it improperly, your ultimate costs can be significantly more than what you would have paid to outsource the work.

 Penalties, fines, the cost of redoing the work, new strict deadlines for new productions, and bad PR can cost you a lot. Every day there is more case law on parties that are sanctioned for data spoliation and scrutiny of process, rules and methodology is increasing. As a result, it is increasingly important to leverage audits reports and implement quality control mechanisms. Know what you do with information and know exactly how your tools work. Also, your counsel must be able to defend your processes in court against objections from opposing counsel (and your external counsel is not always the most technical person!).

This is why you need a well documented and proven methodology, including embedded quality control, auditing and a fully documented chain of custody.

With such a methodology, you can scale, you can easily roll out new projects, train new employees, and include new subsidiaries. In fact, you can make eDiscovery part of a daily operating procedure. You can predict timelines better (because you know the details of what you need to do) and you have a better probability to make the deadlines.

You will need more than just software when you bring eDiscovery in-house

Apart from software licensing that comes in the form of perpetual non-volume based enterprise licenses, volume-based, or time limited hosted (SaaS) and in-house project licenses, one typically also considers professional services, maintenance, support and perhaps some consultancy for the solution. What is critical, however, is that you have access to methodologies from your vendor to properly implement the solution, perform complex tasks and processes as part of eDiscovery,  and prove that your actions are defensible, auditable, recorded and repeatable.

Look for proven methodologies that have been developed in close cooperation with intelligence, law enforcement, law firms and forensic accounting organizations and other mission critical projects. And also look for vendors that can refer to case law, because that will help you tremendously in your case if any party challenges the technology you used.

As George Socha warned in his white paper on bringing eDiscovery in-house (http://www.zylab.com/Resources/white_papers.html ): be aware of faith-based eDiscovery because that is not going to work! If you bring eDiscovery in-house and you do it wrong, then your cost can be significantly more than what you would have paid by outsourcing everything in the first place!

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Guidance Software Delivers New Approach for Effective In-House e-Discovery - SourceWire (press release) Friday, 3 September 2010

Guidance Software Delivers New Approach for Effective In-House e-Discovery SourceWire (press release) First, it eliminates the need to deploy multiple products just to address e-discovery. "With EnCase eDiscovery, customers can now do everything they want to ... Guidance Software Outlines EMEA Growth PlansSourceWire (press release) all 7 news articles »

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"Are You Sure You Want to Delete That??" Friday, 3 September 2010

ESI – electronically stored information – is at the heart and soul of eDiscovery.

A lengthy Lexology article by Alan S. Naar neatly sums up how eDiscovery has been transformed into a unique universe inhabited by many players with varying degrees of involvement. We not only have players, but we also have thorny issues and unplanned expenses. In fact, as Naar concludes:

“E-discovery issues have created a new minefield in litigation involving thorny questions and unexpected costs. Every business has an obligation to be aware of these issues and should consult with counsel regarding new developments in the law.”

ESI Retention Policies

One issue, in particular, needs a closer look: a company’s ESI retention policy.

Naar advises that every company should have a document retention policy with cut-off dates for preserving documents – both electronic and hard copy. And when the dates come up, the documents should be deleted or removed from the system.

So far, so good. But here’s where things get thorny.

Naar says that if a company adheres to a “reasonable retention policy” and destroys information based on that policy before a litigation is filed, the company will not be penalized.

Don’t breathe easy just yet – there’s a but, and it’s a BIG one. The courts have ruled that when there’s a chance of a litigation, or an existing litigation would be compromised if documents are not made available, the company is obligated to suspend its regular policy and must comply with eDiscovery requests (a.k.a. “a litigation hold.”)

Your Word Against Theirs

So how does this play out? Something like this. Let’s invent….Joe.

Joe is a business owner, and per his document retention policy, he tells his IT department to destroy all ESI that has reached the due date. Two days later, Joe receives a legal notice advising him that he must surrender all e-mails and messages exchanged over the past two years ago by his marketing people.

Poor Joe.

Naturally, he’s going to respond by saying that such documents are no longer available, and he’s going to point to his retention policy, which tells him to destroy documents after a certain date. Guess what the other party’s going to say to this?

“Joe, it’s clear that you destroyed the documents in spite of the fact that you knew there was a possibility of a lawsuit?”

And Joe’s irate reply: “I didn’t know I was going to be sued.”

And that’s the rub. Because it’s up to the courts to decide just how credible Joe is when he makes that statement. He’s going to have to really make it clear that he was following a “best practice” policy – and not exploiting that policy in order to mitigate any possible litigation exposure.

Get Expert Legal Help

If Joe could go into a time machine, he’d certainly slide back a couple of years and ask a legal expert for iron clad advice on how to handle his retention policy – and how not to handle it. He’d get things in writing. He’d undertake due diligence. In short: he’d pay attention to this issue because two years later it could have the potential to throttle his company.

As we said, Poor Joe. There’s no time machine for him…but there is for YOU. Get the expert advice you need on this issue, and the next time someone asks “are you sure you want to delete that?”, make sure that your answer is good from a legal perspective; not just an operations or management one.

(Donations for the Save the Joe fund can be made in c/o this blog.)

 

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | David Kaufer

“Are You Sure You Want to Delete That??” Friday, 3 September 2010

ESI – electronically stored information – is at the heart and soul of eDiscovery.A lengthy Lexology article by Alan S. Naar neatly sums up how eDiscovery has been transformed into a unique universe inhabited by many players with varying degrees of involvement. We not only have players, but we also have thorny issues and unplanned expenses. In fact, as Naar concludes:“E-discovery issues have created a new minefield in litigation involving thorny questions and unexpected costs. Every business has an obligation to be aware of these issues and should consult with counsel regarding new developments in the law.”ESI Retention PoliciesOne issue, in particular, needs a closer look: a company’s ESI retention policy.Naar advises that every company should have a document retention policy with cut-off dates for preserving documents – both electronic and hard copy. And when the dates come up, the documents should be deleted or removed from the system.So far, so good. But here’s where things get thorny.Naar says that if a company adheres to a “reasonable retention policy” and destroys information based on that policy before a litigation is filed, the company will not be penalized.Don’t breathe easy just yet – there’s a but, and it’s a BIG one. The courts have ruled that when there’s a chance of a litigation, or an existing litigation would be compromised if documents are not made available, the company is obligated to suspend its regular policy and must comply with eDiscovery requests (a.k.a. “a litigation hold.”)Your Word Against TheirsSo how does this play out? Something like this. Let’s invent….Joe.Joe is a business owner, and per his document retention policy, he tells his IT department to destroy all ESI that has reached the due date. Two days later, Joe receives a legal notice advising him that he must surrender all e-mails and messages exchanged over the past two years ago by his marketing people.Poor Joe.Naturally, he’s going to respond by saying that such documents are no longer available, and he’s going to point to his retention policy, which tells him to destroy documents after a certain date. Guess what the other party’s going to say to this?“Joe, it’s clear that you destroyed the documents in spite of the fact that you knew there was a possibility of a lawsuit?”And Joe’s irate reply: “I didn’t know I was going to be sued.”And that’s the rub. Because it’s up to the courts to decide just how credible Joe is when he makes that statement. He’s going to have to really make it clear that he was following a “best practice” policy – and not exploiting that policy in order to mitigate any possible litigation exposure.Get Expert Legal HelpIf Joe could go into a time machine, he’d certainly slide back a couple of years and ask a legal expert for iron clad advice on how to handle his retention policy – and how not to handle it. He’d get things in writing. He’d undertake due diligence. In short: he’d pay attention to this issue because two years later it could have the potential to throttle his company.As we said, Poor Joe. There’s no time machine for him…but there is for YOU. Get the expert advice you need on this issue, and the next time someone asks “are you sure you want to delete that?”, make sure that your answer is good from a legal perspective; not just an operations or management one.(Donations for the Save the Joe fund can be made in c/o this blog.)

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | eDJ Syndicator

Email Compliance With Ediscovery – Boosh News (press release) (blog) Friday, 3 September 2010

Email Compliance With EdiscoveryBoosh News (press release) (blog)The electronic discovery service helps in simple management of email and compliance with an efficient e-discovery and often times archiving strategy. ...

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Lost Hard Drives in the Mail: An e-Discovery Nightmare Thursday, 2 September 2010

The facts sound like a typical e-Discovery case, but quickly you feel very sick.Two employees were accused of misappropriation of trade secrets.  A Federal lawsuit was filed in Florida.  As one can guess, electronically stored information would be key evidence in the lawsuit.  Dana Ltd. v. Am. Axle & Mfg. Holdings, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88474 (W.D. Mich. Aug. 26, 2010).

The Plaintiffs retained an expert and shipped the computer hard drives for forensic examination to Michigan and forwarded them onto their Florida office.

The hard drives went missing sometime after they were shipped.  Dana Ltd., at *2-3.

The Plaintiffs filed four subpoenas duces tecum to be issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against their own expert’s firm.  Dana Ltd., at *3.

Three days before the depositions, the expert’s attorneys filed a motion to quash or modify the subpoenas in Federal Court in Michigan, because the expert was going to be out of the state on the designated deposition date.  Dana Ltd., at *3-4.The Court attempted to contact the moving party’s attorneys to see if motion practice could be avoided, only to learn that both attorneys left the state.  As the Court noted, “It ill-behooves an attorney to ask the court to drop everything to attend an eleventh-hour request for relief and then leave town.” Dana Ltd., at *4.The Court addressed the motion without a hearing, given the unavailability of counsel.The Court stated it would be exceeding its authority to quash a subpoena issued by the Federal Court in Florida.  In short, the motion was filed in the wrong Federal Court.  Dana Ltd., at *4-5.Bow Tie ThoughtsThe idea of hard drives being lost in the mail sends fear into attorneys and service providers alike.  A shipping accident can happen to anyone.  Moreover, sending hard drives is a common practice, because sending evidence via a personal courier across the country is often not practical, unless there is truly highly sensitive material.A possible best practice is to have the vendor to make a copy before shipping any data.  Alternatively, if multiple hard drives are being shipped, they can be sent separately and staggered out over several days.  This can help ensure if there is a shipping problem, not all the data is lost.

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | eDJ Syndicator

Lost Hard Drives in the Mail: An e-Discovery Nightmare Thursday, 2 September 2010

The facts sound like a typical e-Discovery case, but quickly you feel very sick.

Two employees were accused of misappropriation of trade secrets.  A Federal lawsuit was filed in Florida.  As one can guess, electronically stored information would be key evidence in the lawsuit.  Dana Ltd. v. Am. Axle & Mfg. Holdings, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88474 (W.D. Mich. Aug. 26, 2010).

The Plaintiffs retained an expert and shipped the computer hard drives for forensic examination to Michigan and forwarded them onto their Florida office. 

The hard drives went missing sometime after they were shipped.  Dana Ltd., at *2-3.

The Plaintiffs filed four subpoenas duces tecum to be issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against their own expert’s firm.  Dana Ltd., at *3.

Three days before the depositions, the expert’s attorneys filed a motion to quash or modify the subpoenas in Federal Court in Michigan, because the expert was going to be out of the state on the designated deposition date.  Dana Ltd., at *3-4. 

The Court attempted to contact the moving party’s attorneys to see if motion practice could be avoided, only to learn that both attorneys left the state.  As the Court noted, “It ill-behooves an attorney to ask the court to drop everything to attend an eleventh-hour request for relief and then leave town.” Dana Ltd., at *4.

The Court addressed the motion without a hearing, given the unavailability of counsel.   

The Court stated it would be exceeding its authority to quash a subpoena issued by the Federal Court in Florida.  In short, the motion was filed in the wrong Federal Court.  Dana Ltd., at *4-5. 

Bow Tie Thoughts

The idea of hard drives being lost in the mail sends fear into attorneys and service providers alike.  A shipping accident can happen to anyone.  Moreover, sending hard drives is a common practice, because sending evidence via a personal courier across the country is often not practical, unless there is truly highly sensitive material. 

A possible best practice is to have the vendor to make a copy before shipping any data.  Alternatively, if multiple hard drives are being shipped, they can be sent separately and staggered out over several days.  This can help ensure if there is a shipping problem, not all the data is lost.

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | bowtielaw

e-Evidence Insights: Paris Las Vegas Thursday, 2 September 2010

Source: "Shared" via Dominic in Google Reader | Perry L. Segal

My Google Profile Friday, 16 July 2010

Check out my new Google profile.

Source: Dominic's shared items in Google Reader | (author unknown)