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With the passing of a full year since the e-discovery focused amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure came into effect, we still see a multitude of discovery requests relying upon older interpretations of the FRCP’s definition of “documents” which includes “data compilations from which information can be obtained.” The 2006 amendments broadened the definition of items subject to legal discovery, ranging from documents or data compilations to include all electronically stored information.

 To expect a producing party to include in their disclosures perhaps dozens of various electronically stored information (ESI) types as listed below without the requesting party specifying every category of ESI from the start is naove to say the least. While many production requests weigh heavily upon relevant documents and e-mails, there may be many other forms of crucial ESI that potentially may be overlooked by sheer omission in the request. To include many of the more subtle forms of ESI in your production requests, a thorough understanding of its relevance and the manner in which it needs to be recovered and produced needs to evaluated to justify its production beforehand. That is where CyberControls Computer Analysis Team members will assist attorneys in locating data on electronic media that has evidentiary value in order to eventually present that data in a manner consistent with our clients legal theories and strategies.

1. Correspondence

2. Document drafts

3. Document changes not saved

4. Documents created not saved

5. Instant messages-sent and received

6. E-mails

7. Attachments

8. Metadata associated with specific data files

9. Internet Service Provider (ISP) e-mails i.e. Yahoo mail, Hot Mail, AOL etc.

10. Voice mail messages/deleted voice messages

11. Folder names/File directory

12. Master File Table

13. Images-including all website images visited

14. All website visiting activities-including elapsed time while viewing each site

15. Spreadsheets

16. Draft spreadsheets

17. Database files

18. Financial records incl. tax and accounting info

19. Faxes sent & recieved

20. File access history from company servers and/or Internet

21. Contact lists, Outlook calendar appointments

22. PDA synchronized data

23. Credit card numbers/Online credit card transactions

24. History of Internet searches by search criteria

25. Blogs

26. Company records

27. Inventory of all external hardware devices connected to computer i.e. external media devices, printers, back-up systems etc.

28. Inventory of all software applications installed on the computer

29. Deleted data files

Contact Cybercontrols at

847-756-4890

www.cybercontrols.net

From Jason Nazar, founder of docstoc, the sharing site for professional documents, comes this message

This is Jason from docstoc. Since we launched a few short weeks ago we’ve had thousands of documents of all descriptions being uploaded to the site. To all of you who’ve helped us to make it this far we want to extend a big “Thanks” for being part of our community of forward-thinking professionals.

Thanks again for coming by and trying docstoc - the premier professional document sharing community on the web.

Add a one time fee to all Matters in PCLaw

Some firms do not charge clients for faxing, mail , and photocopies but instead charge the client a one time Administrative Fee.

In PCLaw go to Option –  System Settings –  Matter Billing

One Time Amount will show up as a disbursement.

A Percent of Fees will charge your client a percentage of their fees. So if you have $100 in Fees for your client, they will get charged an additional 10%.  Amount Every Invoice charges you the same amount every invoice.   This will only effect Matters that are created after you make the selection. You can however go into Matter –  Global Change and select this for Matters you have already created so the charge will be on their next bill….(more)

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In Illinois, as well as a growing number of other states, you can no longer just leave used electronics on the curb or in a dumpster. The issue is liability for environmental contamination. Then there is data disposal, and as we all know by now computer hard drives must be permanently and intentionally relieved of their data lest it fall into the wrong hands - a malpractice nightmare.

In case you did not receive an email notice or just didn’t hear, November 15^th was America Recycles Day – a prime opportunity for individuals, firms, and businesses to go green and find out how to dispose of electronic equipment, computers, monitors, printers, routers, phones, PDA’s, etc. Of course the question of the hour is always ‘what is all this going to cost me/my firm/my client?’ As a matter of fact recycling unwanted electronics often costs nothing – on the contrary, it can yield a tax break or even some money in your pocket. 

Well this is your lucky day because the pm blog is bringing the action to you; send us a list of your configured units, printers, monitors, routers, etc. or call 630-388-7057 to find out more about how the pm blog can help you stop procrastinating and put your assets in motion.

This is getting scary. First there was box.net, then scribd, docstoc, and now gazhoo — all are document sharing sites identical in concept and vision to this site that I wrote about here.

The question of the day is: Based on the number of competitors offering ways to store and share resources, are we seeing a real market take shape or a fad?

In answer, consider: More and more I see corporate legal departments, not law firms, as the true beach-heads for the introduction of technology. Sure I thought innovation in this space would come from the less structured and more entrepreneurial part of the legal market, but what do I know? Turns out that the small firms and sole practitioners who should be motivated by competition to innovate are instead too strapped and fearful to foster real change. So that leaves the job of introducing more efficient ways of doing things to … who? The vendors? Don’t make me laugh. All they want is to shove the new model of their product down our collective throats - forget about any real improvements. As for what’s coming up on the horizon (Web 2.0, Law 2.0, etc.) - forget it as long as the legal industry is in the stranglehold of West and Lexis. That leaves large firms and in-house counsel to make the bold moves. But realize that in-house lawyers have a solid motivation to keep pace with their mother companies and find better, faster, cheaper ways to do things. Big law firms, not so much. They still live for inefficiency.

Will things change? Maybe what the profession at large is waiting for is proof that web 2.0/law 2.0 has value, and maybe that will happen when clients and the legal climate overall reward us for innovation instead of punishing us for trying to innovate in the first place (it takes a few tries before you get it right). Love me for trying … don’t hate me for failing.