Spoliation

In my role as a Senior E-Discovery Attorney, I often provide guidance to organizations in how to develop and implement policies governing data retention and disposition. When developing those policies, it is critical to consider both the business and legal implications of preserving or deleting data and, ideally, find a balance between the two even when the concerns and priorities may not be the same. A recent case highlights what often proves to be a fundamental tension between the perspective of business stakeholders and legal stakeholders with respect to the preservation of ESI for pending or reasonably anticipated litigation in large corporations.

You may have read my colleague Starling Underwood’s post on two recent Second Circuit decisions discussing sanctions for spoliation. If you have not, I encourage you to read it here.  In this post, and continuing our music-themed sanction discussions, I narrow the focus to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 37(e), which is used to determine whether and what sanctions are appropriate when ESI spoliation occurs. A recent decision from the Minnesota District Court involving the estate of the artist Prince Rodgers Nelson (“Prince”), Paisley Park Enterprises, Inc. v. Boxill, provides a detailed review of the sanctions analysis under Rule 37(e), while dealing with a category of very common ESI data often at issue in litigation today –  mobile phone text messages.

This is Part One of a continuing series on ESI basics. In this series, we will cover some of the terms used most often on the tech-side of e-discovery. Whether this is an introduction to you, or a refresher, and whether you are an attorney, member of an in-house team, or data analyst, we think this information may come in handy in your practice.

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.