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1. Moore v. Napolitano, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69319 (D.D.C. Aug. 7, 2009).
A magistrate's rejection of a claim of undue burden by the Department of Homeland Security was not clearly erroneous even if plaintiffs' broad discovery request would require a search using all possible keywords of sources where it was clear no responsive documents existed. The magistrate's rejection was coupled with directions to the parties to meet and confer, and plaintiffs had agreed to work with defendant to develop narrow search parameters.
2. In re: Weekley Homes, 295 S.W.3d 309 (2009). Standards that emerged from the Court's remand serve as a sensible guide to those seeking to compel an opponent to recover and produce deleted e-mail.
3. Southeastern Mechanical Services, Inc. v. Brody, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85430 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 31, 2009) - Adverse inference sanctions granted for spoliation of data on BlackBerries despite synchronization with e-mail server.
4. Laethem Equip. Co. v. Deere & Co., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86109 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 31, 2009).
Defendants’ motion for sanctions, described by the court as “a further example of how discovery has become a veritable ‘black hole’ having the potential to draw in and annihilate the case itself,” was denied.
5. U.S. v. Sensient Colors, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81951 (D.N.J. Sept. 9, 2009) - Failure to Timely "Re-Assess its Procedures and Re-Check its Production" upon Notice of Inadvertent Production Results in Waiver of Later Identified Documents.
6. Global Ampersand LLC v. Crown Engineering and Construction Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91009 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 14, 2009). Defendant ordered to fully comply with requests to produce all relevant and discoverable electronic evidence in its possession within five days after inconsistent statements regarding a prior production were found to be not credible.
7. Swofford v. Eslinger, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111064 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 28, 2009). In-House Counsel sanctioned for defendant’s failure to preserve evidence.
8. Tango Transport, LLC v. Transport International Pool, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93930 (W.D. La. Oct. 7, 2009). Request for an adverse inference against plaintiff for loss of information resulting from an inadequate litigation hold was denied for failure to show the lost information would have been admissible and was not available elsewhere.
9. Major Tours, Inc. v. Colorel, “Major Tours II”, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97554 (D.N.J. Oct. 20, 2009). Because of undue burden and cost, defendants were not required to retrieve email from 2500 backup tapes at an estimated cost of $1.5 million. However, a scaled-back restoration of 15 to 17 backup tapes was ordered if plaintiff chose to pay half the cost of the restoration.
10. Multiquip, Inc. v. Water Management Systems LLC, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109148 (D. Idaho Nov. 23, 2009). Attorney-client privilege was not waived under Fed. R. Evid. 502 for an email chain inadvertently disclosed outside of the discovery process.
11. Cenveo Corp. v. Southern Graphic Systems, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108623 (D. Minn. Nov. 18, 2009). Request for production of documents in their "native format" was unambiguous, and "native format" did not have to be defined in order to specify the form of production within the meaning of Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(ii).
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Do you have a question or challenge you'd like the experts at IE Discovery
to address? Please email us, and we'd be happy to help you plan
your strategy.
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  By Lauren A. Allen, Project Manager Supervisor/Program Manager and Scott B. Schneider, Assistant Project Manager
General Counsel faces intense, unprecedented pressure to cut costs. Conversely, the amount of data being created has resulted in spiraling discovery costs. In facing what seems a losing battle, General Counsel need to grow the tools available in their arsenal when approaching discovery. An important skill is use of technology as a way to reduce the costs associated with document collection and legal review. However, the best technology will never overcome the pit-falls associated with reoccurring problems such as the over-collection of documents or the identification of a new issue deep into a large document review which leave you with more documents or rework on a privilege review. In comes the latest tool a general counsel needs. Analysis of how you are handling and responding to discovery requests will eliminate errors and reduce costs. This is a case study of a legal department’s process in identifying avoidable problems that occur again and again across a variety of cases. The result? Tens of thousands of fewer unnecessary documents collected in shorter timeframes and significant cost savings. Outside the legal world, business process strategies are frequently employed in the manufacturing sector to identify areas of inefficiency or waste. The process of building a widget is analyzed and improved resulting in cost savings, better quality, and a streamlined process. In other words, you build better widgets faster for less. We worked with the legal department of a large government agency in its effort to use Lean Six Sigma to streamline their privilege review process to identify efficiencies and cost savings.
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 By Amy Dove, Project Manager, Michael Wyatt, Project Manager & Janet Hornsby, Project Manager, IE Discovery, Inc.
In the days of huge war rooms and smoke-filled strategy meetings, transparency was considered the worst characteristic that any attorney could possess. In today’s electronic discovery world, transparency is expected, if not demanded. Acting in an open and transparent way enables attorneys to prove that they have indeed produced documents in a consistent and defensible manner and will avoid the potential negative effects to the client’s case. Attorneys are now called upon to produce retention letters, chain of custody documents, client’s network mapping, collection methodology paperwork, automated review terms lists and any other articles that could prove that collection and review were performed at a consistently high standard. From meet and confer preparation until the last document has been produced, a methodical, documented approach must be available for review by the court and/or opposing counsel.
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 By Stacy Jackson, Corporate Counsel, IE Discovery, Inc.
There’s been a quiet rumbling of storm clouds on the e-discovery horizon and a perfect storm is brewing. A perfect storm “refers to the simultaneous occurrence of weather events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the storm resulting of their chance combination.” [1] Ethical failures with regard to cooperation, competence and proportionality are on a collision course, and what many do not realize is that these failures are largely responsible for skyrocketing e-discovery costs. Skyrocketing e-discovery costs are especially unwelcome during these trying economic times when most law departments are seeking to cut costs. So, who is to blame for these spiraling costs – you are! Attorneys are ethically obligated to competently represent their client and “keeping up” with technology and cooperating with opposing counsel is fast becoming an integral part of that duty.
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 The process of e-discovery can be an arduous, expensive one. Breaking the process down into steps makes it more manageable. Previously, we have focused on the first step, collection; the second step, chain of custody; the third step, data categories and data flow; and the fourth step, litigation holds. Here, we examine the fifth step—the meet & confer.
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 “You and your team played a significant role in securing the favorable result in this case. You were motivated, dedicated, and committed to delivering work that benefited the government in this difficult litigation.” – United States Attorney
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