Preservation

While requests for email communications and collections from hard drives and networks are standard in today’s litigation, a party’s text messages, and collections from mobile devices are oftentimes overlooked. A narrowly tailored motion to compel forensic exam can be a valuable discovery tool to analyze the data on a party’s mobile phone. This blog analyzes the factors that led a court in the Northern District of Illinois to order the forensic imaging and collection of a party's mobile phone.

In Part One of this blog series, I discuss a case that makes clear the importance of complying with discovery obligations. The Court concluded that Plaintiff’s “extensive misconduct and deception, without any obvious contrition or awareness of the wrongfulness of his conduct” posed a serious risk any further proceedings would be “plagued” by a similar pattern of discovery abuse and deception that would make “it impossible for the district court to conduct a trial with any reasonable assurance that the truth would be available” and ordered Plaintiff’s complaint dismissed with prejudice. Indeed, although the old adage dictates that to the victor go the spoils, there are no spoils and no victory for one who engages in spoliation. 

Even when the need to preserve mobile data is clear, for clients who are not technical experts or who do not have technical experts on staff, how to go about actually preserving that data may not be so obvious. As legal professionals, it is important that we understand how to help our clients preserve mobile data and what pitfalls they may encounter.

There was a time when the only data you needed to collect in response to a discovery request was corporate email. Fast forward to present day. Employees are conducting business with smartphones, via social media and with the assistance of wearable technology. As a result, responding to e-discovery requests has become increasingly challenging.

Now that almost two years have passed since the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became law, we have the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of our current strategies and whether we are taking full advantage of the new rules related to discovery.