Professional Ethics of the Florida Bar Topics: metadata; duties of a lawyer when sending an electronic document to another lawyer and when receiving an electronic document from another lawyer in the course of representing their clients. Summary: “A lawyer who is sending an electronic document should take care to ensure the confidentiality of all information […]
The Conference of Chief Justices established a working group in 2004 to: “develop a reference document to assist state courts in considering issues related to electronic discovery…These Guidelines are intended to help reduce…uncertainty in state court litigation by assisting judge faced by a dispute over e-discovery in identify the issues and determining the decision-making factors […]
American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Topic: Inadvertent Disclosure of Confidential Materials Digest of the Committee: “A lawyer who receives a document from opposing parties or their lawyers and knows or reasonably should know that the document was inadvertently sent should promptly notify the sender in order to permit the sender […]
Committee on Professional Ethics Topic: E-mailing Documents that May Contain Hidden Data Reflecting Client Confidences and Secrets Digest of the Committee: “Lawyers must exercise reasonable care to prevent the disclosure of confidences and secrets contained in ‘metadata’ in documents they transmit electronically to opposing counsel or other third parties.” Rules: DR 1-102(A)(5), 4-101(B), (C), (D), EC […]
From the Author’s Conclusion: “Until the State Bar of Georgia, Georgia appellate courts, or its Georgia federal district courts specifically address the issue of inadvertently disclosed e-mail, counsel receiving [inadvertently sent] e-mail must proceed thoughtfully and with caution. At a minimum, the receiving attorney should promptly notify opposing counsel that he has received the materials. Such notification […]