On September 1, 2012, the newly minted Florida e-discovery rules came into force. The purpose of this article is to provide practitioners who are not familiar with e-discovery understanding of basic concepts, terminology, and the application is “brave new world”. The extent and scope requires us to deal with this in two parts, Part One gives you a basic understanding of e-discovery, the basic terminology used, and tested technology affects the field. Part Two will explore in more detail the technology, overcoming resistance technology, he added how all this affects you as a CAN DO IT practitioner.
YOU Discovery is not new to the lawyers;! You have done for many years and have developed a level of comfort with the procedures and applicable case law. Like me, you can also follow the latest development in the law and advise your client at the beginning of the trial would be no question as to investigate the validity of the claims and statements, including depositions, and requests for documents and that they should not be damaged or destroy the material. You can also talk to your clients by e-mail, exchange documents as draft, and maybe even begin to scan documents and store them electronically in your own office . Also like me, you probably know you can do it all from the many gadgets and devices from virtually anywhere. Well, our clients are working well and you have the ability to do e-discovery and can not imagine it.
E invention is not new either, it has become an integrated part of our federal civil court for several years. There is a growing body of federal case law also manage e-discovery, some may expect in the next few years as Florida’s own body of law on the subject. Important to note, however, that the District Court Rules Florida E-discovery is a little different from the Federal Act, to the federal cases specified must be valid for both the concepts contained the new Rule in Florida. With the new rules, you can see cles, seminars, and the White Paper on the differences, but both the vast new regulatory Florida does not have a mandatory “meet and talk” requirement and component shortages ratification of the Federal Rules.
At The simplest form, e-discovery just collect and produce electronically stored information used to keep your clients in a paper format. Does not negate the invention of paper, but only compliment it. Depending on how much you make and how much you want to invest, your production process can range from simple e-mail data to save data and documents in a lively media such as a CD or thumb drive from a variety of software sophistication and cost. Whatever method you use, the main objective remains the same as it was with the invention of paper, production materials.
TERMINOLOGYIt responded in good or protected is useful to understand some of the more common terms used and important e-discovery:
ESI (electronically stored information) – this is the data. Think of it as a long pile of paper that you have to look through to produce documents responsive
EDRM (Electronic Discovery Reference Model) – e-discovery process consists essentially gathering and maintaining data, processing, analysis, and ultimately produce
De-Duping/De-Duplication – the process of identifying and sorting out the true duplicates
De-Nisting – removing the system files and application of ESI
Filtering – narrow the search data or subsequent search
Hash values - such as VIN number for the car, a unique “fingerprint” assigned to each file
Keywords – identified / selected word previously used to find the ESI process evaluation
Metadata – information about data, such as who created it, edit it, when on any computer, etc.
Original format – the native format for data, such as MS Word, then be converted to other formats for production, such as pdf or tiff, if applicable
PST – file in which the e-mails are stored
Maintenance – keep the original data in an unchanging state
Seizure – loss or damage, whether accidentally or intentionally, the data challenge us to craft the right drug Court and appellate courts to keep us busy for years to come
Technologythe pace of technological development in recent years has been nothing short of amazing. While I was reviewing an e-mail on my tablet when the boat in the Bahamas recently, my twelve year old nephew said he understands the e-mail to be something that parents use to send documents and back. E-mail is really only came into common usage in his life, but recent years have seen an explosion of social media and an increase in other forms of electronic communication, such as texting. All of this technology is to produce and create data that can be a potential gold mine in any litigation and can dynamically change the course and outcome of a lawsuit.
Whether you are a Do-it- yourselfer by nature or choose to hire an outside expert or any particular case You and the client’s needs, there are many technology growing and changing at an exponential rate to help you. To find a match, you should do a little research, no different than when you choose a computer or cell phone. Organizations, such as the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists accumulated a large amount of useful information and precise time on software, vendors, and case law. There are also some convention which to congregate vendors, such as ACEDS Annual Conference in Ft. Lauderdale.
In Part Two, we will explore in more detail the technology and resilience, as well as how all this will affect your skills.