The Complex Insurance Coverage Action's Case Management Process: From Complaint Until Trial --The Policyholder's Perspective
John E. James of Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP
Policyholders and their counsel often are under the impression that efficient litigation management is a one-sided affair. While the objective for them, as with virtually all plaintiffs, is to obtain recovery as soon as the administration of justice in a particular jurisdiction will permit, insurance companies and their counsel appear in many cases to seek the opposite.
Document Retention In The Digital Age: How Long Is Long Enough?
Philip L. Gordon of Littler Mendelson, P.C.
The advent of the "paperless society" has been a boon for fastidious record keepers and the lazy alike. With storage capacity expanding to unfathomable dimensions and storage costs per bit of data approaching zero, the incentive to discard, at least at first blush, has been virtually eliminated. However, another trend, the rapid increase in the number of lawsuits, as well as the ever-present risk of government enforcement actions, provide ample justification for doing more than retaining indefinitely an undifferentiated mass of electronic documents.
What Every Business Owner Needs To Know About Electronic Discovery
Timothy J. Hogan of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.
"Electronic discovery" does not refer to a simple, cheap means of responding to requests for information and documents in litigation. It involves searching your company's computer network to locate and produce potentially large volumes of electronically stored items, e.g. emails, attachments, spreadsheets and drawings, and may include producing metadata (data hidden in documents regarding authors and times of document creation) and drafts of documents that have been "deleted" from computers.
Expanding Scope of Attorney-Work-Product Doctrine: United States v. Aldman
Keara M O'Donnell of DLA Piper LLP
This article discusses the opinion in U.S. v. Aldman, 134 F.3d 1194, in which the Second Circuit held that the work-product doctrine may shield business reports from disclosure under the attorney work product doctrine).
Controlling the Cost of E-Discovery Through Preparation and an Organized Response
Martin D. Beirne,David A. Pluchinsky and Donald W. Towe of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.
The sending of a "preservation" letter is rapidly becoming the norm in litigation today. The typical preservation letter demands that your client sequester its entire computer network and each employee?s PC at Fort Knox, pending the final resolution of either anticipated or currently pending litigation. Such tactics are clearly designed to raise the cost of litigation while at the same time positioning your opponent to seek a spoliation instruction as well as any other sanction that the presiding court may order against either the client or the attorney in charge.
Document and Record Management--Its Time has Come...
Michael R Arkfeld of US Attorney's Office, Arizona
Examined are the characteristics of various document and record management systems and methods.
Helpful Tips for Electronic Document Management in Construction Litigation
Todd Mayo of PinnacleOne
It's not uncommon today for parties involved in construction litigation to request or receive documents in electronic form. Most of us have experienced receiving or producing documents on CD/DVDs by now. However, electronic document management is relatively new to the litigation process.
EDD Showcase: Ignore EDD at Your Peril
Andrew B. McGill and Mark A. Waite of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.
Gone are the days when parties and counsel could claim ignorance of the technical and legal issues involved in preserving electronic records associated with matters in litigation. As Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC , 2004 WL 1620866 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2004) "Now that the key issues have been addressed and national standards are developing, parties and their counsel are fully on notice of their responsibility to preserve and produce electronically stored information."
Safe Communication: Guidelines for Creating Corporate Documents That Minimize Litigation Risks
Joseph F. Falgiani of Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP
Products liability defense cases are particularly vulnerable to "bad" company documents. A company trying to manage the risks presented by bad documents needs more than a document retention program. It requires an educated work force that understands the risks that are created whenever anything is written down in the workplace, either in paper or electronic form. This article suggests a program to educate employees and raise their consciousness about the litigation risks attendant to the creation of documents.
Are The Documents Of A Corporate Defendant Plaintiff's Work Product?
Bowman and Brooke LLP
With the explosion of instant communication through the Internet and organizations like the Attorneys Information .
Controlling the Cost of E-Discovery Through Preparation and an Organized Response
Martin D. Beirne,David A. Pluchinsky and Donald W. Towe of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.
The sending of a "preservation" letter is rapidly becoming the norm in litigation today. The typical preservation letter demands that your client sequester its entire computer network and each employee?s PC at Fort Knox, pending the final resolution of either anticipated or currently pending litigation. Such tactics are clearly designed to raise the cost of litigation while at the same time positioning your opponent to seek a spoliation instruction as well as any other sanction that the presiding court may order against either the client or the attorney in charge.
Electronic Information - A Trap for the Unwary in Business Litigation
Martin D. Beirne,David A. Pluchinsky and Donald W. Towe of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.
In 2005, a court-ordered statement of facts, attributable in part to the spoliation of electronic information, led to a $1.45 billon jury award against Morgan Stanley & Co. This case is one of many confirming that courts are not willing to relax discovery requirements or overlook discovery abuse because data is maintained electronically. Today, the majority of commercial data and corporate communications are either stored or transmitted electronically consequently requests for electronic information ("e-discovery") are common in business litigation.
Low-Tech, Low-Cost Document Automation Systems
Norvell E Brasch
This article discusses the best way to manage and retrieve documents through a three-level approach to knowledge management systems.
The Impact of Discovery Limitations and Cost-Sharing on the Corporate Class Action Defendant after Zubulake
Curtis P. Cheyney and James C. Haggerty of Swartz Campbell LLC
Corporate defendants today are faced with numerous discovery dilemmas stemming from the increasing use of electronic information storage. The exponential growth of computer use in both the business and private sector has led to an explosion of information stored on hard drives, floppy disks, and back-up storage devices. Data can be in the obvious form raw data, or the less obvious cookie and cache files, metadata or other embedded data. Even data believed deleted may still be retrievable from file servers.
An Expert's Escapade, a Cautionary Tale
Robert J Ambrogi and IMS Expert Services
Call it the case of the Renegade Expert. A federal judge's 78-page order enjoining an expert involved in Zyprexa mass-tort litigation from releasing documents serves as a cautionary tale for any lawyer operating under a judicial gag order.
Work Product Privilege Applies To Reinsurance Documents In Illinois
David W. Kenna of Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass
The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, recently decided that correspon.
Your Guide to Fair Employment
Department of Justice
The contents consist of the list of acceptable documents on the inside cover and the Form I-9 on the inside back cover. Other information includes an explanation of what INA is and how it affects employers, information on how to avoid immigration-related problems.
Big Guns: Involving Senior Lawyers in Cases from the Outset Leads to Better Results and is More Cost-Efficient.
Barry W. Lee of Steefel, Levitt & Weiss
In this economic climate and in the current competitive legal marketplace, virtually all companies are focused on reducing the expenses associated with retaining outside counsel to handle litigation and transactions. When deciding which law firm to retain, companies are keenly interested in hourly billing rates. Indeed, in some instances the amount of the hourly billing rates is the decisive factor in selecting one law firm over another.
Electronic Discovery Under the New Federal Rules
Wayne S. Moskowitz of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP
Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing electronic discovery took effect on December 1, 2006. Litigators must familiarize themselves with the new rules, which create a procedural framework for addressing electronic discovery issues, while leaving substantive issues for continued development by the courts.