Electronic Discovery

This is my collection of useful online sources of ESI and electronic discovery information.

• Electronic Discovery News provides the latest electronic discovery news from credible e-discovery sources.
• Law.com features a number of electronic discovery related articles.
• Kroll Ontrack has an excellent list of e-discovery cases. Kroll Ontrack is the leader in services and software related to discovery of electronically stored information, providing services in ESI Consulting, electronic discovery, computer forensics, and more.
• Ralph Losey’s Blog offers electronic discovery updates and insight into recent electronic discovery cases and news. Ralph notes that his blog “is designed for all levels and types of readers, from litigators with years of experience in e-discovery, sophisticated in-house counsel, beginning lawyers and paralegals, and law students, to non-lawyer IT experts and other professionals in the growing fields of e-discovery and information management.”
• Harvard’s Digital Discovery Library has a number of good articles on electronic discovery including The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: The Impact of Digital Discovery.
• Electronic Disclosure and Discovery in Civil Litigation is an informative article comparing UK and US electronic discovery law and the development of e-discovery law and technology in these parts of the world.
• K&L Gates maintains and continually updates a database containing over 900 electronic discovery cases collected from state and federal jurisdictions around the United States. This database is searchable by keyword, as well as by any combination of 28 different case attributes, e.g., on-site inspection, allegations of spoliation, motion for a preservation order, etc. Each search will produce a list of relevant cases, including a brief description of the nature and disposition of each case, the electronic evidence involved and a link to a more detailed case summary if available. For example, you can select the attribute “Spoliation,” type in “2007” as a keyword, and click “Search” to see a list of cases decided in 2007 that involved allegations of spoliation. Or, select the attributes “Motion for Sanctions” and “Lack of Cooperation or Inaccurate Representations,” and click “Search” to see a list of decisions involving parties who displayed bad faith or made uniformed or misleading statements to the court or their opponent about e-discovery issues.
• The Federal Judicial Center’s Materials on E-Discovery Civil Ligitation offers a number of valuable and free electronic discovery materials. One noteworthy e-discovery resource is the Electronic Discovery Pocket Guide, which identifies problems that recur during the course of electronic discovery, and presents management tools that federal judges may use for responding to them. This 26-page publication may be downloaded free of charge. The Electronic Discovery Pocket Guide’s Preface describes this publication:

“This pocket guide is designed to help federal judges manage the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). It encourages judges to actively manage those cases involving ESI, raising points for consideration by the parties rather than awaiting the parties’ identification and argument of the matters. The guide covers issues unique to the discovery of ESI, including its scope, the allocation of costs, the form of production, the waiver of privilege and work-product protection, and the preservation of data and spoliation. As you are reading, you may encounter some unfamiliar terms. Many of these terms are defined in a glossary at the end of the guide. A note of appreciation goes to Judge Lee H. Rosenthal (S.D. Tex.), Ken Withers (the Sedona Conference), and John Rabiej (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts) for their suggestions, which improved this publication. I hope you find the guide useful in meeting the challenges presented by the discovery of ESI.”

Barbara Jacobs Rothstein
Director, Federal Judicial Center

Electronic Discovery Service Providers Companies that provide electronic data discovery include Kroll Ontrack, the industry leader, along with Attenex, Stratisfy, Renew Data, EED, Fios, Applied, and others listed at Computer Weekly.