By IT-Lex Intern Christopher Britt (LinkedIn)

Let it never be said that the United States’ Attorney’s office is not a giver.  Recently, in U.S. v. Cashion, a case involving fraud, conspiracy and money laundering charges, defendants’ counsel asked for production and got way more than he bargained for. Sean Devereux was bombarded with approximately 270,000 documents from the prosecution.

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You may recall the news from a Delaware Court of Chancery last fall: The court had ordered both parties in a case to use predictive coding software to sort through the mountain of discovery facing them. As Pooja S. Nair wrote on this site at the time:

Vice Chancellor Laster characterized the case as “an ideal non-expedited case in which the parties would benefit from using predictive coding.” He asked the parties to use predictive coding for discovery or else to “show cause why this is not a case where predictive coding is the way to go.” He also suggested that they use a single eDiscovery provider – “one of these wonderful discovery super powers” – to warehouse both sides’ documents and offered to choose a vendor if both parties could not agree on one.

This was a bold decision at the time, and now there’s an update…

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By IT-Lex Intern Shannon Allen (LinkedIn)

Our favorite tech giants continue to battle each other in the courtroom.  The District Court for Northern California issued an order on May 9th in response to a Motion to Compel where Apple sued Samsung and subpoenaed third party, Google, for e-discovery.  During the e-discovery meet and confer between Apple and Google, search terms and custodians were not agreed upon or even discussed.  So, Google produced e-discovery.  During a subsequent meet and confer, Apple requested Google provide search terms and custodians used in producing the e-discovery.  Apple wanted to know “how Google created the universe from which it produced documents.” » Read the rest of this entry «

It’s been a little while since we’ve addressed the costs of eDiscovery here at IT-Lex, so right on cue, there’s a recent Fourth Circuit opinion that concerns this precise topic. The case is Country Vintner of North Carolina v. E. & J. Gallo Winery, where Gallo had already been granted a summary judgment in the underlying unfair trade practices action. In its bill of costs, Gallo sought $111,047.75 “for charges related to ESI.” Country Vintner contested this sum, and a district court judge slashed the amount to $218.59. Not happy about only being awarded 0.002% of what they asked for, Gallo appealed to the Fourth Circuit, and that brings us up to date.

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Popehat last week reported about the saga of Scott Bloch. Mr. Bloch served as a United States Special Counsel during the Bush Administration, and was a senior figure at the Department of Justice. He pleaded guilty to, and is currently awaiting sentencing for, approving a “seven-layer wipe” on federal computers while at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. That’s right, we’re talking Spoliation! And as if that wasn’t enough, Bloch is also contacting bloggers to have them remove all mentions of his case. Full details after the break… » Read the rest of this entry «

By IT-Lex Intern Joey Chindamo (LinkedIn)

In today’s look at eDiscovery, we turn to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and the case of Campbell v. Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, et al. The original complaint was filed in 2011, and this article from the New Jersey Law Journal summarizes the scandalous reasons behind the lawsuit:

“Campbell, who is black, claims he was fired on Feb. 5, 2009, two days after he told the firm of his affair with the bailiff, who is white, and the same day a judicial ethics case against him over the relationship was made public.

He claims he was forced to resign and was escorted out of the firm’s Newark office where he had worked since 2006.

He says he was fired because of the interracial affair and his allegations of disparate treatment of minority lawyers. The firm, based in San Francisco, denies discriminating or firing Campbell.”

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INSIDE AND OUT is a semi-regular column, where corporate counsel discuss technology law issues with outside counsel. In this installment, IT-Lex Member Jason A. Pill talks with Mory M. Jones, Esq., Director of Litigation for Medi-Weightloss Franchising USA, LLC, whose opinions expressed herein are entirely her own. 

 Jason Pill: Mory, after practicing as a litigator for over 10 years, you recently made the shift to work in-house as a Director of Litigation.  You went from billing hours to reviewing bills and monitoring efficiency of outside counsel.  How has this shift impacted your general perspective on litigation?

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If you’ve seen Episode 3 of IT-Lex Productions, then you’ll know about the importance of metadata. Last week, a federal court in Idaho had to address a dispute involving metadata, and in so doing, offered a nice refresher in the rules of evidence generally, and of electronically stored information more particularly. The case is AtHome Care, Inc. v. The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society. It’s basically a contracts dispute, and the court had to respond to AtHome’s motion to compel.

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By Pooja S. Nair (bio)

The Singaporean government has adopted aggressive measures to become a regional center for dispute resolution and arbitration in areas ranging from intellectual property, to oil and gas arbitration.

Singaporean court officials have made eDiscovery part of their broader plan to drive dispute resolution and arbitration to the country.  In August 2011, Singapore hosted an International Conference on Electronic Litigation, during which then-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chan Sek Keong, stated:

“For Singapore to maintain its lead as a regional dispute resolution centre – whether for litigation or arbitration – our profession must be personally equipped with both the technical tools and the skill set to be able to handle cross-border disputes involving large volumes of documents and in a cost-efficient manner.”

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In last month’s Kirgan v. FCA LLC, a district court in Illinois responded to the plaintiff’s motion for sanctions due to alleged eDiscovery violations. The lawsuit began as an employment dispute, with plaintiff claiming to have been wrongly fired by defendant. From the opinion:

Plaintiff’s counsel tried repeatedly to obtain the calendars that [two of defendant's managing officers] kept. She sent a notice that she had been retained and that, unless amicable agreement was reached, an EEOC charge would be filed. After this case was filed, she requested the calendars in written discovery in November of 2011. She was told several occasions that the men did not keep such calendars; she subpoenaed the calendars from the men directly. Again she was told that they did not keep calendars.

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