February 16, 2021 at 12:54 PM
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Every once in a while, a court decision involving e-discovery issues comes along that is particularly instructive. I wrote about a similar case here about 18 months ago. The outcome was not good then; if possible, this one is worse.
Striking are the common themes that run through cases like this. In fact, during my 20-plus years in e-discovery, it has been my experience that in every case in which e-discovery processes have gone off the rails, it is almost always in the early stages that counsel or the client make mistakes.
For the unenlightened, any time a litigation or investigation event is anticipated, is threatened, or actually commences, parties and their counsel have an obligation to preserve information, including electronically stored information (ESI) that may be relevant to the claims and defenses in the case. That’s the rule. And it’s pretty simple.
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Historically, the legal profession has been reluctant to embrace technology and electronic discovery in the practice of law. Indeed, practitioners often still exchange discovery in paper format or ignore, altogether, medium, like text messages, that may be repositories of relevant information. A recent case
In DR Distributors, LLC v 21 Century Smoking, Inc. – is an example supporting the belief of judges “that too many attorneys pay too little heed to both the spirit and the letter of procedural rules addressing e-discovery.” This decision, which focuses on the basic duties and fundamentals of handling electronically stored information (“ESI”) during all stages of litigation, is a must read for litigators appearing in Federal courts.