information governance

July 8, 2023

Emoji Forms a Contract

Lots has been written about emojis. See, e.g., What Do Judge Peck’s 2009 Wm. Gross Opinion and “Zoomers” Have to Do With Each Other?  Prof. Eric Goldman, cited in that blog, is one of the leading authorities. In Farmer owes $82,000 in contract dispute over use of a ‘thumbs-up’ emoji, judge says […]
March 3, 2023

Concerns About Family Privacy Don’t Justify Spoliation

In 360 Security Partners, LLC v. Hammond, 2023 WL 1869633 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 9, 2023), a defendant tried to justify wiping a company laptop by asserting privacy concerns.  The court did not accept that excuse.  Instead, it sanctioned the defendant. Defendant Hammond was the former CEO of the plaintiff.  Plaintiff terminated Hammond […]
February 7, 2023

Can a Party Obtain Discovery From Its Opponents’ Former I.T. Service Provider?

In Relativity’s® 2022 Data Discovery Legal Year in Review e-book (8th ed.), David Horrigan, Esq., highlighted a fascinating case, Martley v. City of Basehor, 2022 WL 1302820 (D. Kan. May 2, 2022)(“Martley I”).  Mr. Horrigan described the case as a “clever … use [of] the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to find […]
December 16, 2022

What Do Judge Peck’s 2009 Wm. Gross Opinion and “Zoomers” Have to Do With Each Other?

“Zoomers” have their own style of communication.  Danielle April, Gen Z’s slang and emojis are confusing older colleagues at work – The Washington Post (Dec. 12-13, 2022). Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, have a “form of messaging” that creates “a quirky challenge for multigenerational workplaces….” Id.  For example, Ms. […]
August 29, 2022

Legal Project Management – Review of Two Recent Publications

“Legal project management” is receiving increased attention in litigation.  See, e.g., Sarah Horstmann and Jill Sonnesyn, A Quick Guide to Legal Project Management in Litigation (americanbar.org) (ABA Aug. 23, 2022)(“Law firms are increasingly relying on Legal Project Management (LPM) to manage litigation matters. LPM takes general project management methodologies and applies them […]
August 28, 2022

Some of the Perils of Group Texts and “Reply All” Emails

Kathryn Rubino’s post, Attorney’s Group Text Goof Leads To Mistrial – Above the Law (Aug. 22, 2022), describes what happened when a prosecutor sent a group text to a group of prosecutors. The group text criticized a judge’s ruling excluding evidence: “Regrettably for [attorney’s name omitted], Judge [name omitted] — a former prosecutor […]
August 12, 2022

“Modern Attachments” or “Pointers”- What is a Document? (Part IV)

  I have written a series of blogs on What is a Document? (Part III),  What is a Document? (Part II), and What is a “Document?” In those blogs, I pointed to issues that may be presented by, for example, text bubbles, spreadsheet cells, Excel workbooks with multiple worksheets, PDF Portfolios, and […]
August 10, 2022

Authentication of Disputed Signature by Description of Information Governance Policy

In Mason v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC,  2021 WL 4820520, at *1 (D. Md. Oct. 15, 2021), the Court held that defendant had properly authenticated a disputed signature on an arbitration agreement.  The signature was authenticated by testimony of a human resources officer as to defendant’s routine business practices. Mr. Mason was employed […]
August 4, 2022

Trump Aide Navarro Sued by US Over Private Email Account Records

Bloomberg Law reports that: The US Justice Department sued former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, claiming he’s refused to provide the National Archives with emails retained on a private account he used while working for President Donald Trump. “Mr. Navarro is wrongfully retaining presidential records that are the property of the […]
July 11, 2022

How to Properly Erase Hard Drives?

The Washington Post recently published an article by Chris Velazco, titled How to securely erase your old hard drives once and for all (July 8, 2022). “There are so many stories about people buying used computers online and recovering data,” said Andrés Arrieta, director of consumer privacy engineering at the Electronic Frontier […]
May 16, 2022

Information Governance – Mis(?)-Labeling Documents as Privileged (Part IV)

Google’s “communicate with care” program has garnered a lot of attention.[1] It allegedly instructed employees to label any written communications on a certain topic as privileged and send them to in-house counsel.  The Department of Justice sought sanctions and an order compelling disclosure, asserting that the policy was pretextual. Google replied that […]
April 9, 2022

Information Governance – Mis(?)-Labeling Documents as Privileged (Part III)

When the Department of Justice alleged that Alphabet Inc.’s Google was camouflaging ordinary documents as privileged, I – and many others – posted abut information governance.  When Google responded that the government’s allegation was “baseless” and that it had spent 21,000 hours on privilege review, I also reported that.  Information Governance – […]
March 23, 2022

Information Governance – Mis(?)-Labeling Documents as Privileged

Mar. 25, 2022 UPDATE: B. Ford and M. Bergen, Google Disputes DOJ Claim It Hid Documents in Lawyer Emails (bloomberglaw.com) (Mar. 24, 2022). Alphabet Inc.’s Google is pushing back on U.S. Justice Department claims that it improperly used attorney-client privilege to conceal documents in the government’s monopoly lawsuit against the company. “None of the […]