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You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat: Data Management and E Discovery Strategy

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

This iconic line was uttered by Chief Brody in the 1975 blockbuster film Jaws when he first saw the massive size of the shark they were trying to catch. At that moment, Brody realized they were in completely over their heads, and the boat they had was not big enough to accomplish their task. While Quint’s Orca fishing boat and his traditional methods were capable of handling previous assignments, they were not going to be enough to take on the enormous shark they were chasing.

For better or worse, the digital environment we live in has resulted in an explosion in the number of documents and amount of information created and used by companies in their daily operations. A mid-sized company’s internal emails alone can run into the tens of thousands a day, and that is before factoring in reports, meeting minutes, studies, presentations, and other business documents. Adding in external emails and related attachments, you are looking at millions of documents a year. Because of this increased volume of data, companies dealing with potential litigation must adjust accordingly.

Like Brody, they need a bigger boat. An effective e-discovery strategy can provide companies with a bigger boat capable of handling even the most massive litigation matters.
Legal Updates

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Ephemeral Messaging Challenges

The emergence of ephemeral messaging applications to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers quickly, securely, and effortlessly has boomed over the past decade. In that time, users of ephemeral messaging apps have risen significantly, from millions to billions of active users! Ephemeral messaging is an integral and evolving part of both individual and company communications with advantages and challenges impacting companies and the legal industry. Companies must consider the ramifications of their employees' use of ephemeral messaging and adopt policies and procedures to best protect themselves and comply with requirements relating to litigation and regulation. Courts have already begun addressing the failure to preserve relevant ephemeral messages and have been issuing sanctions in a myriad of legal challenges. Ephemeral messaging is here to stay, and companies, courts, and attorneys must understand and adapt to evolve with this emerging technology.
Legal Updates

Generative AI E-Discovery Tools and the Importance of Prompt Engineering

The explosion of LLMs (large language models) and other Generative AI tools designed to increase workplace efficiency and productivity has created a new lexicon of jargon and definitions. The term “Prompt Engineering” may be the most widely used new term to describe the method of using LLMs and Generative AI tools. Prompt engineering is the creation of text-based instructions or cues that a person uses to direct LLMs or other generative AI tools. These instructions are then interpreted by the AI tool. Learning to harness the power of e-discovery AI Tools like Relativity’s aiR for Review through prompts specifically constructed to produce the output you desire in your case can increase your efficiency. Implementing these prompt creation and iteration tips and tricks will help you use Relativity’s aiR for Review tool to more effectively to assist with litigation, document review, and deposition or trial preparation.
Legal Updates

Solving the “‘Privilege Log’ Problem”: Proposed Changes to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16 & 26

Changes to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16(b) and 26(f) are projected to come into effect in December 2025 that have been promulgated to address what proponents refer to as the “‘privilege log’ problem.” December 2025 is still relatively far in the future and whether the proposed amendments to Rules 16(b) and 26(f) are actually adopted is still subject to additional approvals, including approval by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, bear in mind that nothing in the current Federal Rules of Civil Procedure prevents the parties from implementing the more proactive approach the proposed amendments seek to achieve.
Legal Updates

Taming the Privilege Log Beast

There are few things more dreaded in discovery than the time-consuming, tedious, onerous, beastly privilege log – especially in complex litigation matters involving thousands of pages of documents. These logs, however, are a critical component of the E-Discovery process that requires careful attention to detail in planning, analysis, and preparation. In this blog post, we will explain what a privilege log is, discuss the various types of privilege logs, recommend pre-privilege review strategies, and address post-submission concerns.
Legal Updates

THE ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE: THE CORPORATE COMMUNICATION CONUNDRUM – PART II

As anyone faced with discovery requests knows, one of the most important parts of producing documents is determining what documents are subject to attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine and must therefore be redacted or withheld. Failing to conduct an effective privilege review can have dire consequences -- from exposure of highly confidential information to even waiver of the privilege. In Part One of this blog post, we discussed how difficult it can be in a corporate context to determine whether an individual document should be withheld or redacted as privileged. In this Part Two, we discuss how employing technology in our privilege review reduces risk and makes this process easier and more efficient.
Legal Updates

The E-Discovery Problem of “Modern” Attachments: Case Trends in the Production of Hyperlinked Documents

Have you ever given much thought to what constitutes a “family” of documents when producing electronically stored information (“ESI”)? Even if you are an E-discovery attorney, you very well may not have. After all, it is pretty straight forward, isn’t it? An email and all its attachments are a document family. Sometimes, you have a document with embedded files or images that may be split off into separate documents in the collection or processing process. That document and its embedded files are a document family. And . . . that’s pretty much it, right? Well, not so fast. As cloud storage and collaboratively shared documents become more popular, we are seeing increasing numbers of emails that have hyperlinks to documents rather than conventional attachments. So, are hyperlinked documents part of a family? How are the courts handling these issues?
Legal Updates

The Legal Competency Missing from Legal Education: Law School Curricula and E-Discovery

As the amount of electronically stored information (“ESI”) continues to grow at an exponential rate, basic E-Discovery knowledge becomes increasingly essential for litigators and legal professionals alike across a variety of practice areas. And yet, it does not appear that law schools are keeping up with E-Discovery’s ever-growing consequence. While a handful of law schools do offer standalone E-Discovery courses, it is far from the norm. Mere passing references to E-Discovery in higher education are inadequate to prepare future lawyers for the realities of the legal profession in this digital age.
Legal Updates

We Hold These Rules to Be Self-Evident: Document Review, Relevance, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Sometimes, an argument or position may seem so self-evident or apparent that parties proceed on the assumption that it is correct without ever actually litigating the issue. Should a party decide to contest the issue, however, it can be difficult to find authority in support of the proposition. Such was the case in a recent decision involving an ESI protocol issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in United States ex rel. M. Frank Higgins & Co. v. Dobco, Inc., No. 22-cv-9599, 2023 WL 5302371 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 17, 2023). The parties there disagreed as to how searches for ESI should be conducted. The Court, in resolving their dispute, examined the parties' obligations to produce ESI under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 34.