Sanctions and adverse inference rulings are far too rare in my opinion. That is because far too often opposing productions are not scrutinized and compared against your own collections. Too few counsel run the metrics of key witnesses and wonder why their email counts suddenly dropped or vanished during the critical time frame. Lawyers should practice law and stay focused on evidence and merits [...]
The Wayback machine has taken 2,073 snapshots of the CDC’s COVID-19 Business Guidance webpage since it was launched March 6, 2020. Why would it make >11 snapshots per day (74 on August 17th)? This CDC page is the primary national level guidance for businesses that want to reopen safely. The nifty Changes tool (beta screenshot below) shows that page could have changed 2-3 times [...]
Whether Sullivan or the legal department made the decision to conceal the hacker payoff is pretty much irrelevant to me. A felony crime was committed against Uber, it’s employees, it’s customers and shareholders. Your incident response workflow should include an assessment of reporting obligations. Even the most sensitive investigations need a formal workflow that documents the response decision process. Knowing that your actions and [...]
Despite early articles proclaiming a dearth of COVID-19 related lawsuits, the first waves have hit the courts. I was disappointed that a law firm article focused on recommendations that were outdated before it hit the digital presses instead of clear litigation preparedness guidelines. Back in July I outlined some better practices for corporate litigation defense preparations as businesses reopened. My point here is that [...]
This ABA article lays out the rule, boundaries and considerations for avoiding issues when your eDiscovery process is challenged. I sit in that hot seat for some of my long term retainer clients who have invested in mature eDiscovery infrastructure. I recommend that corporations and firms identify their designated deponent(s), the scope of their coverage and the resources needed to support their testimony. The [...]
I do a lot of acceptance and QC testing for clients as their designated 30(b)(6) witness of their discovery systems. In fact, I like to find hidden gotchas and exceptions that I can take back to providers to fix. In over 30 years I have never found a ‘bad’ analytic system. Instead I frequently encounter users who do not ‘trust but verify’ before they [...]
I resist reviewing white papers behind the contact wall, but Joe’s new ‘multidimensional analytics’ catch-word lured me into ponying up my email address to Knovos. Like many white papers, this one focuses on the benefits more than the technical functionality, but a demo or access to a matter loaded with public data should provide that info. Knovos believes their advantage lies in how they [...]
This week Microsoft added an automated transcription feature to their online Word. It is easy to use and renders a surprisingly accurate transcript that differentiates between speakers and keeps the times of the conversation segments. This is great from a user perspective. Why bother to keep meeting notes when you have a free transcript of everything said? It does present some challenges to your [...]
With a majority of our key employees working remotely via Zoom meetings, conference calls and various chat platforms Microsoft has just added automatic transcription functionality to user’s online Word application. This functionality enables users to convert previously recorded or live audio into a pretty good transcript that differentiates between speakers and has an associated xml file with the segment times. Tech savvy users have [...]
I try to read provider marketing papers when they are not hidden behind the contact collection wall, especially when they promise lists of cost saving tips. In this case, the list of ten tips seems to boil down to in-sourcing your ediscovery and buy Zapproved’s products. The overall principals behind the ‘tips’ are sound if rather obvious. Unfortunately, my PDF copy was missing all [...]