Allyson Haynes Stuart, One Massive Litigation Hold Order in California NSA Cases

Lawyers are familiar with the “litigation hold” – once litigation is reasonably anticipated, potentially relevant documents, including electronic documents, must be retained and not destroyed.  Ordinarily the scope of that data extends to the specific parties and the locations their relevant data may be found (laptops, cell phones, etc.).  But when the litigation involves the […]

Huron Consulting Group, Curtailing the Costs of E-Discovery

From the Article: “E-discovery practice continues to evolve, resulting in increasing complexity and, with it, greater risks. Recent cases and developments offer new insights and interpretations of existing issues, while new practices and technology, such as cloud computing, intelligent review technology, mobile devices/BYOD, and overpreservation add new challenges”. The full text can be downloaded at http://www.huroncon….

Nathan M. Crystal, Judge Scheindlin Orders Adverse Inference Instruction on Behalf of Defendant for Plaintiff’s Gross Negligence in Failing to Timely Institute Litigation Hold

In Sekisui American Corp. v. Hart, 2013 WL 4116322 (Aug. 15, 2013), Judge Scheindlin has added another important opinion to the law of electronic discovery.  In 2003-2005 Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York issued five rulings in the Zubulake case that have become the basis of much of the law with regard to the […]

Consol. Aluminum Corp. v. Alcoa, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 335 (M.D. La. 2006)

In an action concerning environmental cleanup responsibilities, the plaintiff [Consolidated] contended that the defendant’s designation of only four employees to maintain a litigation hold was inadequate. Considering the lack of precedent within the Fifth Circuit as to standards for preservation of electronic evidence and sanctions for spoliation of electronic evidence, the Court held that plaintiff […]

Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, “Zubulake V”, 229 F.R.D. 422 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)

In the Introduction section of the opinion, the court provided a brief background of the case, the motion at hand, and the issues for consideration: “This is the fifth written opinion in this case, a relatively routine employment discrimination dispute in which discovery has now lasted over two years. Laura Zubulake is once again moving to […]

Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, “Zubulake IV”, 220 F.R.D. 212 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)

From the Opinion: “This opinion addresses both the scope of a litigant’s duty to preserve electronic documents and the consequences of a failure to preserve documents that fall within the scope of that duty.” After UBS was ordered to produce documents from certain backup tapes, the parties discovered that certain tapes were missing. The court […]