In most states, police can arrest people for minor offenses, including traffic offenses punishable only by a fine. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ability of police in Texas to arrest a woman for failure to wear a seat belt after she was stopped while driving her two children home from soccer practice. Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318 (2001).
In the Atwater case, the woman was handcuffed and driven to the police station where she was booked and photographed. Her car was inventoried and towed. She ended up paying a $50 fine. Had the arrest in the Texas case happened today, the police could also likely have searched through her cell phone. This means, if she had a smartphone such as iPhone or Android, the police could search through all of her text messages, photos, calendar entries, and e-mails. In other words, much of her personal life would be exposed to the police as a result of her failing to wear a seatbelt.
As cell phones contain greater amounts of personal information, it seems that the Fourth Amendment would require police to obtain a warrant prior to searching through the contents. However, a number of courts, relying on Supreme Court cases decided before cell phones existed, have permitted these searches without warrants when a person is arrested.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Joshua Engel
Friday, April 29, 2011
5-Step Social Media Plan
With more than 800 million active users across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, social media cannot be ignored. Financial institutions must adapt or face mass customer migration.
In researching and writing my social media books, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate and How to Make Money Marketing on Facebook, and in my subsequent work with thousands of financial professionals, I have seen the many ways financial institutions are making new technologies work for them, ultimately succeeding in the LinkedIn and Facebook era. These five guidelines could help you develop your best practices.
1. Address regulatory compliance. As you probably already know, there are a number of federal regulations governing online communications. SEC Rule 17a-4 and NASD Rules 2210, 2211, and 3110 require records retention for a minimum of three years on all incoming and outgoing business-related electronic communications, including all social network messages, status updates and posts.
FINRA enforces these SEC regulations as they apply to broker-dealers, and last year issued Regulatory Notice 10-06 to underscore the importance of extending good governance practices to include social media. While the specifics of Dodd-Frank are still being determined, new laws governing other mainstream financial professionals are likely on the way.
The most successful financial institutions and their representatives possess the forethought to implement sound records retention and review procedures as they integrate social media initiatives. They exercise cautious but not exclusionary best practices from the onset.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: americanbanker.com
By: Clara Shih
In researching and writing my social media books, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate and How to Make Money Marketing on Facebook, and in my subsequent work with thousands of financial professionals, I have seen the many ways financial institutions are making new technologies work for them, ultimately succeeding in the LinkedIn and Facebook era. These five guidelines could help you develop your best practices.
1. Address regulatory compliance. As you probably already know, there are a number of federal regulations governing online communications. SEC Rule 17a-4 and NASD Rules 2210, 2211, and 3110 require records retention for a minimum of three years on all incoming and outgoing business-related electronic communications, including all social network messages, status updates and posts.
FINRA enforces these SEC regulations as they apply to broker-dealers, and last year issued Regulatory Notice 10-06 to underscore the importance of extending good governance practices to include social media. While the specifics of Dodd-Frank are still being determined, new laws governing other mainstream financial professionals are likely on the way.
The most successful financial institutions and their representatives possess the forethought to implement sound records retention and review procedures as they integrate social media initiatives. They exercise cautious but not exclusionary best practices from the onset.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
--------------------------------------------
Source: americanbanker.com
By: Clara Shih
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Legal Side of the Cloud: Worrisome?
Cloud computing from a legal standpoint is all about the trust the customer has with the service provider. The customer expects that the data stored in the cloud will be safe. The customer wants guarantees that their data will not be mis-used by the provider. The provider must also accept a number of legal qualifications and limitations that protect the customer. Having faith in the provider is not good enough.
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Source: nojitter.com
By: Gary Audin
I began my career as a U.S. Air Force officer in military intelligence research and development. There I learned about collecting and protecting information. I also was tasked with finding ways to bypass the protections. Further, I learned that by collecting information from several sources, I could construct a data base that provided a broader picture than any single source had. This knowledge has led me to consider what could happen to cloud-based information.
I am not a lawyer, but some of the security and legal issues have already become clear, as I've outlined in some recent blogs:
* Cloud-Based Communications: Right for You?
* More Privacy Regulations: U.S. and Europe
* Hosted IPT and UC: Limited in Europe?
* E-Discovery Resources: Use Them
* Cloud Security, Some Guidance
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Source: nojitter.com
By: Gary Audin
Court Declines to Compel Government to Contribute to Creation of Database to Ease Defendant's Discovery Burden, Recommends Application for Assistance
United States v. Salyer, Cr. No. S-10-0061 LKK [GGH], 2011 WL 1466887 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 18, 2011)
“Unlike the usual discovery dispute—not enough produced—the dispute between the parties [in this case] involves too much produced, in too many formats, and whether the defense has been given a fair opportunity within the parameters of an adversary system of criminal justice to make use of that discovery.”
Defendant Salyer, “the one-time head of a large food processing company” was charged with racketeering, falsification of records and antitrust violations. The discovery in the case was immense: “It is probably no exaggeration to state that 1-2 terabytes of information are involved.” The evidence in the case had been amassed from a number of sources and existed in a wide variety of formats, including documents that were OCR’d, scanned and produced in .pdf; electronic documents produced in text searchable files; paper records; the forensic image of a corporate database; and forensic images of computers seized from the relevant corporation (searchable only with special software). Recognizing the potential difficulties that might arise, the court was tasked with advising on the impact of the discovery on the trial schedule.
In addition to the sheer volume of discovery compiled from many sources (and produced in many formats), several other “problems/issues” were identified that “complicated expeditious pre-trial review of the massive amounts of information” including that defense counsel lacked the resources to conduct a large scale review; that defense counsel was likely to have been “behind the technological knowledge curve when it comes to preparing an electronically based mega-case”; that defendant was the “sum total of the defense ‘corporate knowledge’” and as such needed to be substantially involved in the review of discovery (made more difficult by the need for defendant to acquire permission to travel to participate in that review and his need to return to his home by a set time each day); and the “inability to agree on the precise issues in dispute and the documents needed” a problem described by the court as related to defendant’s intent to present a broad defense “created out of alleged business custom and practice” rather than responding to the indictment allegations “head on.”
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: ediscoverylaw.com
“Unlike the usual discovery dispute—not enough produced—the dispute between the parties [in this case] involves too much produced, in too many formats, and whether the defense has been given a fair opportunity within the parameters of an adversary system of criminal justice to make use of that discovery.”
Defendant Salyer, “the one-time head of a large food processing company” was charged with racketeering, falsification of records and antitrust violations. The discovery in the case was immense: “It is probably no exaggeration to state that 1-2 terabytes of information are involved.” The evidence in the case had been amassed from a number of sources and existed in a wide variety of formats, including documents that were OCR’d, scanned and produced in .pdf; electronic documents produced in text searchable files; paper records; the forensic image of a corporate database; and forensic images of computers seized from the relevant corporation (searchable only with special software). Recognizing the potential difficulties that might arise, the court was tasked with advising on the impact of the discovery on the trial schedule.
In addition to the sheer volume of discovery compiled from many sources (and produced in many formats), several other “problems/issues” were identified that “complicated expeditious pre-trial review of the massive amounts of information” including that defense counsel lacked the resources to conduct a large scale review; that defense counsel was likely to have been “behind the technological knowledge curve when it comes to preparing an electronically based mega-case”; that defendant was the “sum total of the defense ‘corporate knowledge’” and as such needed to be substantially involved in the review of discovery (made more difficult by the need for defendant to acquire permission to travel to participate in that review and his need to return to his home by a set time each day); and the “inability to agree on the precise issues in dispute and the documents needed” a problem described by the court as related to defendant’s intent to present a broad defense “created out of alleged business custom and practice” rather than responding to the indictment allegations “head on.”
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: ediscoverylaw.com
Can Technology 'De-Commoditize' Document Review?
Fact investigation is the bedrock of litigation, and in many cases document review is the bedrock of fact investigation. But in the modern age, when computers create and retain far more information than was ever before thought possible, the old model of manual document review is becoming increasingly unworkable.
Driven by 20th century notions of liberal discovery, that model is typically characterized by broad discovery demands, counsel's collection of all potentially responsive documents, and the manual review of those documents for responsiveness and privilege before production.
Whatever its merits in a paper-driven world, this approach is ill-suited to even midsize cases today, which can involve "documents," i.e., computer data, more voluminous than all of the information in a large library. To review that volume of material in the timeframes demanded in litigation or government investigations, clients must hire dozens or hundreds of temporary document reviewers. These reviewers march through the data in assembly-line fashion and separate it into responsive, non-responsive, privileged, and non-privileged piles, often without even trying to identify the small number of truly important documents.
Not only are such large numbers of reviewers expensive, but they can be notoriously difficult to manage and often produce uneven results.
As highlighted in a March 4, 2011, front-page New York Times story, however, technological solutions are emerging that will change how lawyers review documents.[FOOTNOTE 1] If these solutions work as expected, they will have significant implications for the practice of law. This article examines some of those implications from the vantage point of having substantial personal experience with some of these new tools.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Robert W. Trenchard and Steven Berrent
Driven by 20th century notions of liberal discovery, that model is typically characterized by broad discovery demands, counsel's collection of all potentially responsive documents, and the manual review of those documents for responsiveness and privilege before production.
Whatever its merits in a paper-driven world, this approach is ill-suited to even midsize cases today, which can involve "documents," i.e., computer data, more voluminous than all of the information in a large library. To review that volume of material in the timeframes demanded in litigation or government investigations, clients must hire dozens or hundreds of temporary document reviewers. These reviewers march through the data in assembly-line fashion and separate it into responsive, non-responsive, privileged, and non-privileged piles, often without even trying to identify the small number of truly important documents.
Not only are such large numbers of reviewers expensive, but they can be notoriously difficult to manage and often produce uneven results.
As highlighted in a March 4, 2011, front-page New York Times story, however, technological solutions are emerging that will change how lawyers review documents.[FOOTNOTE 1] If these solutions work as expected, they will have significant implications for the practice of law. This article examines some of those implications from the vantage point of having substantial personal experience with some of these new tools.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Robert W. Trenchard and Steven Berrent
The Impact of Advanced E-Discovery Software on Young Lawyers
Document review. (Cue the groans.) The prospect of reviewing thousands of (often mind-numbingly boring) e-mails, memos, bills, reports, and other documents generated by a client in the course of its daily business doesn't exactly inspire glee in the hearts and minds of young lawyers.
Gone are the days of conference rooms with boxes and redwells full of documents stacked to the ceiling; now attorneys can flip through documents on their computers using software specifically designed for discovery during litigation and the document review that goes along with it.
Although e-discovery software can make it easier to sift through, review, and organize documents, and notwithstanding a recent article in The New York Times (discussed below) that openly wondered whether e-discovery technology has advanced enough to replace attorneys, it should not be forgotten that the process is still an investigation aimed at advancing a case in terms of trial and/or settlement strategies. E-discovery is an important tool and area for development, and young attorneys who can effectively navigate the process to find the documents most critical and useful to their cases bring significant value to the litigation process.
Technology is marching forward at an incredibly rapid pace, and e-discovery software has not been left behind. Software programs designed to aid lawyers in the review of electronically stored information have been available for over a decade, and many attorneys may already be familiar with Concordance, Ringtail, and other similar document review programs. These types of programs generally can:
• Convert image formats of paper documents (such as TIFFs and PDFs) into searchable data.
• Search for key terms, phrases, dates or e-mail addresses
To Continue Reading: Click Here
--------------------------------------------
Source: law.com
Gone are the days of conference rooms with boxes and redwells full of documents stacked to the ceiling; now attorneys can flip through documents on their computers using software specifically designed for discovery during litigation and the document review that goes along with it.
Although e-discovery software can make it easier to sift through, review, and organize documents, and notwithstanding a recent article in The New York Times (discussed below) that openly wondered whether e-discovery technology has advanced enough to replace attorneys, it should not be forgotten that the process is still an investigation aimed at advancing a case in terms of trial and/or settlement strategies. E-discovery is an important tool and area for development, and young attorneys who can effectively navigate the process to find the documents most critical and useful to their cases bring significant value to the litigation process.
Technology is marching forward at an incredibly rapid pace, and e-discovery software has not been left behind. Software programs designed to aid lawyers in the review of electronically stored information have been available for over a decade, and many attorneys may already be familiar with Concordance, Ringtail, and other similar document review programs. These types of programs generally can:
• Convert image formats of paper documents (such as TIFFs and PDFs) into searchable data.
• Search for key terms, phrases, dates or e-mail addresses
To Continue Reading: Click Here
--------------------------------------------
Source: law.com
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Legal challenges could hold back cloud computing
Want to store your digital songs, movies, TV shows, books and video games on a computer or mobile device?
No problem.
The real trick these days is pushing all that content onto the Internet so it can follow you from device to device, eliminating the need for storage altogether.
But while a flurry of major companies — from Amazon.com Inc. to Time Warner Cable Inc. to GameStop Corp. and others — are beginning to deliver technology to give you instant access to all your media from any device, some of the creators of that content are trying to tap the brakes.
"Content owners are a little hesitant to jump into this new model because it is disruptive to their distribution models currently in place," said Laura Allen Phillips, research analyst for Dallas-based Parks Associates.
The dispute revolves around the notion of "cloud computing," a buzzword for the idea that your digital material isn't stored on a hard drive in your laptop or iPhone.
Instead, you keep your data in online computer servers that are accessible anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: therepublic.com
By: Victor Godinez
No problem.
The real trick these days is pushing all that content onto the Internet so it can follow you from device to device, eliminating the need for storage altogether.
But while a flurry of major companies — from Amazon.com Inc. to Time Warner Cable Inc. to GameStop Corp. and others — are beginning to deliver technology to give you instant access to all your media from any device, some of the creators of that content are trying to tap the brakes.
"Content owners are a little hesitant to jump into this new model because it is disruptive to their distribution models currently in place," said Laura Allen Phillips, research analyst for Dallas-based Parks Associates.
The dispute revolves around the notion of "cloud computing," a buzzword for the idea that your digital material isn't stored on a hard drive in your laptop or iPhone.
Instead, you keep your data in online computer servers that are accessible anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: therepublic.com
By: Victor Godinez
Judge Announces Preliminary Ruling in Facebook Debt Harassment Lawsuit
Morgan and Morgan is pleased to announce that a Florida judge has made a precedent-setting preliminary ruling in Beacham v. MarkOne Financial, a debt harassment case handled by the firm's own Billy Howard. The judge ruled last month that the debt collector can no longer contact the plaintiff, her family or friends on Facebook, making this the first ruling by a judge specifically stating that creditors cannot use a social networking website to collect a debt.
In the Facebook debt harassment lawsuit, Billy Howard, an attorney in Morgan and Morgan's Tampa office, represented Melanie Beacham. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Beacham fell behind on car payments and received several e-mails, text messages and phone calls, both at home and at work, from MarkOne Financial representatives. Soon after, the suit claims, MarkOne contacted Beacham's sister via Facebook in regard to the debt. Mr. Howard believed this conduct to be a violation of Ms. Beacham's rights and filed a debt harassment case in Pinellas County on her behalf.
Debt harassment lawyer Billy Howard has also filed another harassment lawsuit against MarkOne in Duval County. According to the case, MarkOne representatives sent Facebook messages to the plaintiff, asking her to call them, even though they had already phoned her several times.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: benzinga.com
In the Facebook debt harassment lawsuit, Billy Howard, an attorney in Morgan and Morgan's Tampa office, represented Melanie Beacham. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Beacham fell behind on car payments and received several e-mails, text messages and phone calls, both at home and at work, from MarkOne Financial representatives. Soon after, the suit claims, MarkOne contacted Beacham's sister via Facebook in regard to the debt. Mr. Howard believed this conduct to be a violation of Ms. Beacham's rights and filed a debt harassment case in Pinellas County on her behalf.
Debt harassment lawyer Billy Howard has also filed another harassment lawsuit against MarkOne in Duval County. According to the case, MarkOne representatives sent Facebook messages to the plaintiff, asking her to call them, even though they had already phoned her several times.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: benzinga.com
Riding the Waves of Early Case Assessment
Can you really conduct early case assessment, or is it simply a fancy name for a more traditional indexing and culling model? What exactly is "early case assessment" (ECA)?
While working on a project for one of my corporate clients, I had to delve deeper into this question and reached out to a few of my old industry friends and colleagues -- Gyorgy Pados of Capital Legal; Richard Cohen, of Renew Data; Rick Lutkus and Lori Chavez of Seyfarth Shaw; Michelle Mahoney of Mallesons Stephen Jaques; and Jonathan Maas of Ernst & Young -- to gain a better perspective on the widely debated phenomenon.
As the novelty of the ECA concept starts to wear off and more and more practical evaluation and understanding develops, it’s time to reflect on the positioning of ECA on the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) framework. Is it mature enough yet to be used in the best way -- and embraced? What capabilities are properly framed "ECA"?
The legal technology industry uses ECA in various ways. ECA could refer to appliance, software, or software as a service to quickly collect/index, de-duplicate, and search electronically stored information (ESI) to provide fast analysis of its content. The concept is a platform or service to facilitate a quick fly-over of the ESI collection to gather key reports of data make-up, information, and communication histograms patterns, concepts and themes, keyword analysis, and evaluations. Most ECA products provide dynamic probing and data-evaluation facilities to arrive at the relevant ESI, very much like the traditional fact-finding early-case-evaluation approach to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the case. But is this the right way to define ECA, or should it mean something different, such as analytic capabilities prior to collection or indexing of data?
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: George Rudoy
While working on a project for one of my corporate clients, I had to delve deeper into this question and reached out to a few of my old industry friends and colleagues -- Gyorgy Pados of Capital Legal; Richard Cohen, of Renew Data; Rick Lutkus and Lori Chavez of Seyfarth Shaw; Michelle Mahoney of Mallesons Stephen Jaques; and Jonathan Maas of Ernst & Young -- to gain a better perspective on the widely debated phenomenon.
As the novelty of the ECA concept starts to wear off and more and more practical evaluation and understanding develops, it’s time to reflect on the positioning of ECA on the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) framework. Is it mature enough yet to be used in the best way -- and embraced? What capabilities are properly framed "ECA"?
The legal technology industry uses ECA in various ways. ECA could refer to appliance, software, or software as a service to quickly collect/index, de-duplicate, and search electronically stored information (ESI) to provide fast analysis of its content. The concept is a platform or service to facilitate a quick fly-over of the ESI collection to gather key reports of data make-up, information, and communication histograms patterns, concepts and themes, keyword analysis, and evaluations. Most ECA products provide dynamic probing and data-evaluation facilities to arrive at the relevant ESI, very much like the traditional fact-finding early-case-evaluation approach to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the case. But is this the right way to define ECA, or should it mean something different, such as analytic capabilities prior to collection or indexing of data?
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: George Rudoy
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Recovering E-Discovery Costs as a Prevailing Party
After you celebrate your win in federal court, as the prevailing party, you will likely turn your attention to the bill of costs. In the age of electronic discovery, a large majority of your client's costs may have been incurred to recover and produce electronically stored information. In fact, your opponent may have used e-discovery as a weapon throughout the litigation to extract a settlement.
But what if both parties knew the court could award e-discovery costs to the prevailing party? In this case, it is likely both parties would exercise restraint in making unlimited demands for ESI and willingly cooperate to minimize e-discovery costs. Or, both parties may be more apt to enter into a cost allocation agreement from the outset.
Before the advent of electronic discovery, a lawyer would review discovery requests, and either the client or the lawyer would personally gather the client's documents in order to respond to the requests. More often than not, the client's documents would be presented to the lawyer in paper form, and the lawyer, after reviewing the documents for privilege and responsiveness, would have the documents bates-stamped, photocopied and sent off to the other side.
Today, the process of gathering documents is far more complicated. More than 90 percent of today's business records are electronic, as noted by David G. Reis, author of eDiscovery. In handling discovery requests, lawyers and their clients are not equipped with the knowledge or technical skill to gather electronically stored documents. The process of gathering documents is now a concerted effort between the legal and technical teams. The lawyer's role in collecting responsive documents is now that of a project manager and involves, among other duties, identifying and interviewing document custodians, determining the kinds of electronic documents that were created, and uncovering the company's data preservation practices to determine where potentially responsive ESI resides and is stored. Once the lawyer's work is done, the technical team, often a skilled ESI vendor, processes the data by copying it from its original electronic format (commonly referred to as "native format") so that the lawyer can review the documents for privilege and responsiveness.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Christine Soares
But what if both parties knew the court could award e-discovery costs to the prevailing party? In this case, it is likely both parties would exercise restraint in making unlimited demands for ESI and willingly cooperate to minimize e-discovery costs. Or, both parties may be more apt to enter into a cost allocation agreement from the outset.
Before the advent of electronic discovery, a lawyer would review discovery requests, and either the client or the lawyer would personally gather the client's documents in order to respond to the requests. More often than not, the client's documents would be presented to the lawyer in paper form, and the lawyer, after reviewing the documents for privilege and responsiveness, would have the documents bates-stamped, photocopied and sent off to the other side.
Today, the process of gathering documents is far more complicated. More than 90 percent of today's business records are electronic, as noted by David G. Reis, author of eDiscovery. In handling discovery requests, lawyers and their clients are not equipped with the knowledge or technical skill to gather electronically stored documents. The process of gathering documents is now a concerted effort between the legal and technical teams. The lawyer's role in collecting responsive documents is now that of a project manager and involves, among other duties, identifying and interviewing document custodians, determining the kinds of electronic documents that were created, and uncovering the company's data preservation practices to determine where potentially responsive ESI resides and is stored. Once the lawyer's work is done, the technical team, often a skilled ESI vendor, processes the data by copying it from its original electronic format (commonly referred to as "native format") so that the lawyer can review the documents for privilege and responsiveness.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Christine Soares
Courts respect “native” formats in ediscovery
Allison Stanfield, CEO of e.law International, examines recent decisions in Australian courts regarding metadata and native format documents in the discovery process. There are a number of recent Australian cases that provide that documents delivered as part of discovery must be produced in their native format.
In Drilling & Grouting Services Pty Ltd v Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd (2010), the respondent sought additional discovery from the applicant, including any document capable of being provided as a print-out from an electronic file to be also “provided by delivery of an electronic copy of that file in native format,”and made this claim with regard to Federal Court Practice Note CM6.
The applicant counterclaimed that discovery of the relevant documentation in native format would necessarily lead to the discovery of an entire database which included information not relevant to the proceedings and to which the respondent was therefore not entitled access to.
With respect to various financial reports, however, the court provided that: “The respondents are entitled to see the documents in their electronic form and, again, if they exist, they should be provided in native format.”
The court also acknowledged that documents in their electronic format had the potential to be not only useful in the pre-trial process, but also at the trial itself.
Similarly, Automotive Dealer Administration Services Pty Ltd v Kulik & Ors (2010) concerned the alleged improper use of customer information by the defendant while he was in the employ of the plaintiff company, such that a customer database was taken or accessed by the defendant to establish a new company.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: idm.net.au
By: Allison Stanfield
In Drilling & Grouting Services Pty Ltd v Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd (2010), the respondent sought additional discovery from the applicant, including any document capable of being provided as a print-out from an electronic file to be also “provided by delivery of an electronic copy of that file in native format,”and made this claim with regard to Federal Court Practice Note CM6.
The applicant counterclaimed that discovery of the relevant documentation in native format would necessarily lead to the discovery of an entire database which included information not relevant to the proceedings and to which the respondent was therefore not entitled access to.
With respect to various financial reports, however, the court provided that: “The respondents are entitled to see the documents in their electronic form and, again, if they exist, they should be provided in native format.”
The court also acknowledged that documents in their electronic format had the potential to be not only useful in the pre-trial process, but also at the trial itself.
Similarly, Automotive Dealer Administration Services Pty Ltd v Kulik & Ors (2010) concerned the alleged improper use of customer information by the defendant while he was in the employ of the plaintiff company, such that a customer database was taken or accessed by the defendant to establish a new company.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: idm.net.au
By: Allison Stanfield
Manage and Mitigate EDD Costs With Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
It is well settled under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and existing case law that lawyers have a duty to become sufficiently familiar with their client's electronic information systems so that the lawyers can carry out their discovery obligations. This may place a duty on outside counsel to speak directly with their client's IT personnel to understand, among other things, the intricacies of the company's e-mail systems.
Microsoft Exchange Server is a messaging platform that provides the e-mail storage database, transport features to send e-mail data from one place to another, and the ability for users to retrieve e-mail data via a number of different software clients, such as Outlook. Exchange Server 2010 is Microsoft's fifth major release of the Exchange Server family platform and constitutes a significant advancement of the product.
Below are three new Exchange Server 2010 features that can help lawyers manage and mitigate electronic data discovery costs. Lawyers should fully understand how these features are used in their client's environment and whether they impact the location, retention, or accessibility of e-mail data.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: Law Technology News
By: Bobby Malhotra
Monday, April 25, 2011
Safe Harbor: Why EU data needs 'protecting' from US law
Why were the Safe Harbor principles created in the first place? To maintain trade between Europe and the United States, with Europe fully aware of the lax attempts at data privacy performed on the part of the U.S.’s biggest companies.
Why Europe needed Safe Harbor principles
The vast majority of people using services on the web — be it web-based email like Hotmail or Yahoo!, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, or anything as minute as a website requiring registration– tend not to think about where their personal data like photos and email is stored.
On the whole, these services are designed to save us time and energy, and we have come to want the offerings of these services on-demand, without thinking too much about privacy. We expect our respective governments, wherever we are in the world, to protect us to a level where we can act and communicate freely.
However, an inequality in legal protection between the United States and the European Union could have massive consequences for users of ‘the cloud’.
Data protection legislation differs greatly between the European Union and the United States. With a vast number of organisations branching out to worldwide offices during the dot-com boom, it was clear to legislators that data transfer and protection laws needed a global overhaul. A particular area of focus for data legislation was the European Union, with dozens of countries sharing elements of the same law.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: zdnet.com
By: Zack Whittaker
Why Europe needed Safe Harbor principles
The vast majority of people using services on the web — be it web-based email like Hotmail or Yahoo!, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, or anything as minute as a website requiring registration– tend not to think about where their personal data like photos and email is stored.
On the whole, these services are designed to save us time and energy, and we have come to want the offerings of these services on-demand, without thinking too much about privacy. We expect our respective governments, wherever we are in the world, to protect us to a level where we can act and communicate freely.
However, an inequality in legal protection between the United States and the European Union could have massive consequences for users of ‘the cloud’.
Data protection legislation differs greatly between the European Union and the United States. With a vast number of organisations branching out to worldwide offices during the dot-com boom, it was clear to legislators that data transfer and protection laws needed a global overhaul. A particular area of focus for data legislation was the European Union, with dozens of countries sharing elements of the same law.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: zdnet.com
By: Zack Whittaker
To Cloud, or Not to Cloud
That is the big IT question for a lot of companies
Heading into the cloud can seem like an attractive prospect. But there are a lot of questions companies should consider before they make the trip.
The sales pitch for cloud computing is simple: Companies pay a third-party vendor to run one or more of their systems, like email or payroll, on its own servers. In theory, the clients save a bundle on hardware, software and personnel costs and can devote those resources to boosting their business.
But the reality usually isn't so clear-cut. The costs may not be as attractive as they look at first glance, for instance, and it may be better to keep some critical or complex software in-house even if it's more expensive to do so. There are also potential legal issues that arise from using cloud servers; companies might unwittingly violate the terms of their software licenses or federal rules on storing data. Plus, reliability may be an issue, as some customers of Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud services learned last week.
Here's a look at some of the most important questions to ask before committing to the cloud.
How Much Do We Save, If Anything?
When considering which systems are candidates for the cloud, companies need to start with the basics: Is this move going to save money, and will it bring better technical results?
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: wsj.com
By: Robert Plant
Heading into the cloud can seem like an attractive prospect. But there are a lot of questions companies should consider before they make the trip.
The sales pitch for cloud computing is simple: Companies pay a third-party vendor to run one or more of their systems, like email or payroll, on its own servers. In theory, the clients save a bundle on hardware, software and personnel costs and can devote those resources to boosting their business.
But the reality usually isn't so clear-cut. The costs may not be as attractive as they look at first glance, for instance, and it may be better to keep some critical or complex software in-house even if it's more expensive to do so. There are also potential legal issues that arise from using cloud servers; companies might unwittingly violate the terms of their software licenses or federal rules on storing data. Plus, reliability may be an issue, as some customers of Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud services learned last week.
Here's a look at some of the most important questions to ask before committing to the cloud.
How Much Do We Save, If Anything?
When considering which systems are candidates for the cloud, companies need to start with the basics: Is this move going to save money, and will it bring better technical results?
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Source: wsj.com
By: Robert Plant
Smartphones like Apple's iPhone hold treasure trove of data on users' lives
In the sexy but increasingly scary world of smartphone forensics, insiders have a name for all the personal information purposely or unknowingly stored inside that iPhone or Android or Blackberry in your pocket.
They call it your "digital fingerprints."
With the right tools and physical access to your smartphone, anyone can tap into the private details of your life: texts, photos, tweets, Facebook ramblings, doctor's appointments, favorite hiking trails, and maybe even what you had for dinner last night at that little French bistro on the corner.
"You can find out everything about someone from their smartphone," said Amber Schroader, owner of Paraben of Pleasant Grove, Utah, which makes forensic software for investigators and the general public. "You can see their YouTube videos, the websites they've surfed, their pictures. People are addicted to their cell phones, so this is the freshest and most valuable information available about someone."
Although wireless companies and others have long been able to track the locations of phones remotely, it's unclear what other information they may be able to access remotely. But forensics investigators have long known that a treasure trove of biographical data can be gleaned when they have physical access to handheld devices. Even before researchers this week disclosed that the location-tracking file had been found on the iPhone, investigators had been collecting data from the Apple Smartphone
"We've been analyzing iPhones since they came out," said Christopher Vance, a digital forensics specialist at Marshall University's Forensics Science Center, which works with state and local law enforcement agencies in West Virginia.
Data that Vance and his lab have helped harvest from iPhones include call logs, map search results from the device's Google Maps app, graphics stored in the browsers' cache, even logs of what's been typed into the iPhone's virtual keyboard.
"There's tons of great information on the iPhone," he said.
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Source: mercurynews.com
By: Patrick May and Troy Wolverton
They call it your "digital fingerprints."
With the right tools and physical access to your smartphone, anyone can tap into the private details of your life: texts, photos, tweets, Facebook ramblings, doctor's appointments, favorite hiking trails, and maybe even what you had for dinner last night at that little French bistro on the corner.
"You can find out everything about someone from their smartphone," said Amber Schroader, owner of Paraben of Pleasant Grove, Utah, which makes forensic software for investigators and the general public. "You can see their YouTube videos, the websites they've surfed, their pictures. People are addicted to their cell phones, so this is the freshest and most valuable information available about someone."
Although wireless companies and others have long been able to track the locations of phones remotely, it's unclear what other information they may be able to access remotely. But forensics investigators have long known that a treasure trove of biographical data can be gleaned when they have physical access to handheld devices. Even before researchers this week disclosed that the location-tracking file had been found on the iPhone, investigators had been collecting data from the Apple Smartphone
"We've been analyzing iPhones since they came out," said Christopher Vance, a digital forensics specialist at Marshall University's Forensics Science Center, which works with state and local law enforcement agencies in West Virginia.
Data that Vance and his lab have helped harvest from iPhones include call logs, map search results from the device's Google Maps app, graphics stored in the browsers' cache, even logs of what's been typed into the iPhone's virtual keyboard.
"There's tons of great information on the iPhone," he said.
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Source: mercurynews.com
By: Patrick May and Troy Wolverton
Friday, April 22, 2011
Finally Forgiveness: Magistrate Recognizes that E-Discovery Software Isn’t Perfect
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth LaPorte
Elizabeth LaPorte, U.S. magistrate judge for the Northern District of California, struck a blow for rationality in electronic discovery last month in Datel Holdings, Ltd. v. Microsoft Corporation, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30872 (March, 11, 2011). What did she do? She held that e-discovery software isn’t always perfect. Forgiveness is a virtue. Good for her, I say.
What’s This All About?
Microsoft was sued by Datel Holdings for allegedly monopolizing the aftermarket accessories for its Xbox 360 video game product. (See Microsoft’s Datel Defense Takes Bite out of Apple’s Playbook, from the blog Antitrust Today.)
During the course of discovery, Microsoft realized that it had produced six emails that it considered to be privileged. Five of the six documents were part of a long email chain that started with a request for legal advice. The emails got through because key text was truncated due “to a glitch in the document review software that caused these documents to be produced in truncated format.” Microsoft counsel alleged that the documents got through their screening process because it wasn’t obvious from the text that remained that the email chain was instigated by a request from in-house counsel.
Specifically, Defendant explains that after potentially responsive documents were collected from custodians, they were loaded into a computerized document processing system known as “Clearwell.” Clearwell extracted metadata from each document and converted the documents into a format that allowed for text searching. Once the documents were processed through Clearwell, they were entered into an online platform where they were reviewed by attorneys. For reasons still unknown to Defendant, Clearwell truncated some “Re-auth” documents during processing.
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Source: catalystsecure.com
By: John Tredennick
Elizabeth LaPorte, U.S. magistrate judge for the Northern District of California, struck a blow for rationality in electronic discovery last month in Datel Holdings, Ltd. v. Microsoft Corporation, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30872 (March, 11, 2011). What did she do? She held that e-discovery software isn’t always perfect. Forgiveness is a virtue. Good for her, I say.
What’s This All About?
Microsoft was sued by Datel Holdings for allegedly monopolizing the aftermarket accessories for its Xbox 360 video game product. (See Microsoft’s Datel Defense Takes Bite out of Apple’s Playbook, from the blog Antitrust Today.)
During the course of discovery, Microsoft realized that it had produced six emails that it considered to be privileged. Five of the six documents were part of a long email chain that started with a request for legal advice. The emails got through because key text was truncated due “to a glitch in the document review software that caused these documents to be produced in truncated format.” Microsoft counsel alleged that the documents got through their screening process because it wasn’t obvious from the text that remained that the email chain was instigated by a request from in-house counsel.
Specifically, Defendant explains that after potentially responsive documents were collected from custodians, they were loaded into a computerized document processing system known as “Clearwell.” Clearwell extracted metadata from each document and converted the documents into a format that allowed for text searching. Once the documents were processed through Clearwell, they were entered into an online platform where they were reviewed by attorneys. For reasons still unknown to Defendant, Clearwell truncated some “Re-auth” documents during processing.
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Source: catalystsecure.com
By: John Tredennick
How To Make Sure Your Company’s Data Doesn’t Get Stuck In Europe
As debates about data privacy rage in the United States—theWikileaks Twitter case is a recent and prominent example—it is important for multinational corporations and other potential litigants (both plaintiffs and defendants) not only to understand the nuances of the markedly different privacy definitions and security standards in the European Union (“EU”), but also to master this legal landscape with the indispensable help of expert local counsel in foreign jurisdictions. These differences are especially important given that U.S. courts engaged in the litigation discovery process routinely expect litigants to be able to produce relevant data through cross-border discovery according to the same standards and restrictions that apply at home. A highly informative webinar hosted byRenewData, a provider of services for the discovery, archiving, and governance of electronically stored information (“ESI”), and featuringKen Rashbaum of the law firm Rashbaum Associates, discussed these issues and others vital to corporate counsel.
European Definitions of Privacy and Personal Data
The EU and its member nations have expansive definitions of privacy with respect to personal data. These have been codified to include the right to respect for one’s personal and family life, as well as one’scorrespondence. According to Rashbaum, the EU’s concept of personal data extends to any information relating to an identified natural person (“data subject”) who can be identified, directly or indirectly, “in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.” These can include IP addresses as well as Internet traffic data and search queries. As discussed below, there is a distinct lack of inter- and intranational (not to mention provincial and local) jurisdictional harmony within the EU when it comes to definitions of personal data.
Rashbaum states that both France and Germany have definitions far stricter than the EU. However, the most comprehensive (and thus protective) definitions have emerged from the former Communist Bloc eastern European countries that now belong to the 27-member EU. Where privacy was once trampled upon, it is now held dear and protected by law. Notwithstanding differences among member States, the EU’s overarching philosophy is to both (i) prevent the misuse of personal data and (ii) ensure the free flow of data within the EU by enacting data protection statutes that regulate almost all instances where personal data is at issue. Even so, it is vital to remember that EU laws such as the European Privacy Directive are only floors that the laws of member States may raise.
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Source: blogs.forbes.com
By: Ben Kerschberg
European Definitions of Privacy and Personal Data
The EU and its member nations have expansive definitions of privacy with respect to personal data. These have been codified to include the right to respect for one’s personal and family life, as well as one’scorrespondence. According to Rashbaum, the EU’s concept of personal data extends to any information relating to an identified natural person (“data subject”) who can be identified, directly or indirectly, “in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.” These can include IP addresses as well as Internet traffic data and search queries. As discussed below, there is a distinct lack of inter- and intranational (not to mention provincial and local) jurisdictional harmony within the EU when it comes to definitions of personal data.
Rashbaum states that both France and Germany have definitions far stricter than the EU. However, the most comprehensive (and thus protective) definitions have emerged from the former Communist Bloc eastern European countries that now belong to the 27-member EU. Where privacy was once trampled upon, it is now held dear and protected by law. Notwithstanding differences among member States, the EU’s overarching philosophy is to both (i) prevent the misuse of personal data and (ii) ensure the free flow of data within the EU by enacting data protection statutes that regulate almost all instances where personal data is at issue. Even so, it is vital to remember that EU laws such as the European Privacy Directive are only floors that the laws of member States may raise.
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Source: blogs.forbes.com
By: Ben Kerschberg
Offensive tweet could land you in court, but insurance is just around the corner
As an increasing number of tweets and Facebook postings speed onto the information superhighway, some will inevitably crash and burn.
But unlike drivers caught in a car wreck, users behind careless tweets or nasty Facebook postings haven't traditionally had any kind of insurance to bail them out.
They soon might.
Malcolm Randles, who issues cyber insurance policies for Kiln, a subsidiary of Lloyd's of London, said brokers in Canada are keeping a keen eye on social media trends and are beginning to develop coverage for the consequences of unruly posts.
"We're sort of feeling our way through, trying to work (it) out," Randles said.
"It's very new in Canada. Brokers have caught on to what their colleagues are doing in the U.S. and have been very strong in promoting this class of business."
As employers increasingly use sites such as Facebook and Twitter to market products, communicate with customers and collect information, they leave themselves open to regulatory, legal and reputational risks.
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Source: canadianbusiness.com
By: Rebekah Funk
But unlike drivers caught in a car wreck, users behind careless tweets or nasty Facebook postings haven't traditionally had any kind of insurance to bail them out.
They soon might.
Malcolm Randles, who issues cyber insurance policies for Kiln, a subsidiary of Lloyd's of London, said brokers in Canada are keeping a keen eye on social media trends and are beginning to develop coverage for the consequences of unruly posts.
"We're sort of feeling our way through, trying to work (it) out," Randles said.
"It's very new in Canada. Brokers have caught on to what their colleagues are doing in the U.S. and have been very strong in promoting this class of business."
As employers increasingly use sites such as Facebook and Twitter to market products, communicate with customers and collect information, they leave themselves open to regulatory, legal and reputational risks.
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Source: canadianbusiness.com
By: Rebekah Funk
Capturing the Cloud – Computer Forensics and Cloud Computing
A service that dramatically lowers costs while actually improving quality; these are the magic words for any company, and in a tough economy, a service that can deliver is an easy sell.
It is also exactly what cloud computing claims to provide. Cloud computing uses the speed and scope of the Internet’s maturing global infrastructure to centralize core processing and computing functions into massive server systems that are remotely accessible via secure Internet connections. From an economic standpoint, the concept is revolutionary. But as we distance ourselves from our data, security and accountability concerns emerge. When litigation inevitably occurs, companies that spot these issues early and address them proactively will truly maximize the tremendous value offered by the cloud.
It is also exactly what cloud computing claims to provide. Cloud computing uses the speed and scope of the Internet’s maturing global infrastructure to centralize core processing and computing functions into massive server systems that are remotely accessible via secure Internet connections. From an economic standpoint, the concept is revolutionary. But as we distance ourselves from our data, security and accountability concerns emerge. When litigation inevitably occurs, companies that spot these issues early and address them proactively will truly maximize the tremendous value offered by the cloud.
What Is Cloud Computing?
Although difficult to define, generally speaking, cloud computing is an extension of the operations and functions of a traditional data center to resources accessible remotely via the Internet. The services outsourced to a cloud provider can include pure data storage, the provision of computer applications through Application Service Providers (ASPs), software, platform or infrastructure through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), respectively, or some combination thereof.
Cloud computing services are often attractive because they can provide companies access to a wide range of high-quality IT services at lower costs than a company providing and maintaining these IT functions on its own. Furthermore, these variable operational costs require very little up-front investment or need for reinvestment later. Best of all, reducing IT spending allows companies to redirect more resources into core business practices.
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Source: Kroll Ontrack OnPoint
By: Thought Leadership Team
Cloud computing services are often attractive because they can provide companies access to a wide range of high-quality IT services at lower costs than a company providing and maintaining these IT functions on its own. Furthermore, these variable operational costs require very little up-front investment or need for reinvestment later. Best of all, reducing IT spending allows companies to redirect more resources into core business practices.
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Source: Kroll Ontrack OnPoint
By: Thought Leadership Team
The Quest to Better Utilize Native-Format Production
Right now, the tides of e-discovery favor production of electronically stored information in native form -- i.e., within the original application in which it was created. Because no outlay is needed to convert the data to a static image, those going with e-discovery's current flow believe that native productions cost less and should thus serve as the default production format for all e-discovery.
But leaping into a wholesale native production without consideration of the format's potential significant hidden costs and case-management problems can put some litigants in over their heads. A more thorough examination of the issues associated with native-format production, along with a more nuanced approach to ESI production overall, show that the best format for e-discovery really depends on the specific circumstances of each case. To craft a strategic e-discovery plan, litigants need to understand the advantages and disadvantages associated with production in both native and traditional static-image format so that ESI production meets -- rather than dictates -- litigation strategy.
Native-format production has certain clear benefits. Production of data within their original application results in significant up-front savings compared with the cost of converting the data into a static-image format such as a TIFF or PDF. Some applications just work better in their native format, allowing access to formulas, hidden comments, and editing information.
For example, PowerPoint documents containing multimedia information and speaker notes may be more efficiently reviewed and produced in native format because of challenges associated with producing usable images from the application. The same is true for Excel files. Other proprietary or custom databases may also be unintelligible as static images and may similarly require production in native format. Finally, production in native format allows the receiving party to see each document as it existed when created, potentially providing important information regarding the context as well as the content of the information produced.
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Source: Law.com
By: Michael Collyard and Vivian Enck
What We Can Learn From Amazon’s Cloud Collapse
Call it Cloudgate, Cloudpocalyse or whatever you’d like, but the extended collapse of Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) is both a setback for cloud computing and an opportunity for us to figure out how to stop it from happening again.
Amazon may be best-known for its online shopping site, but it also has a substantial cloud computing business. It provides a scalable, flexible and particularly efficient solution for companies to store and deliver massive amounts of content. Its model of only paying for what you consume was a radical innovation when it launched in 2006.
In fact, Amazon Web Services has been so affordable and reliable that thousands of companies from Foursquare to Netflix utilize the company’s cloud computing technology and servers to run their businesses. They put their faith in Amazon’s cloud because there was no reason to think that it would falter. One of cloud computing’s key tenants is reliability through redundancy of both servers and data centers.
Then on Wednesday, Amazon’s northern Virginia data center started experiencing problems that caused major latency and connectivity issues. The trouble was apparently due to excessive re-mirroring of its Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes — this essentially created countless new backups of the EBS volumes that took up Amazon’s storage capacity and triggered a cascading effect that caused downtime on hundreds (or more likely thousands) of websites for almost 24 hours.
The collapse took its share of victims. Among the most prominent companies affected were Foursquare, Quora, Hootsuite, SCVNGR, Heroku, Reddit and Wildfire, though hundreds of other companies big and small were affected. Luckily, one of Amazon’s most prominent customers, Netflix, didn’t experience problems because it’s built for the loss of an entire data center, while companies relying on Amazon’s four other global data centers didn’t experience too many issues.
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Source: mashable.com
By: Ben Parr
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Information governance policy issue: Who owns a governance program?
Because successful information governance efforts are ongoing programs rather than projects with finite endings, the question of ownership is an elemental one. Someone has to secure funding, make the difficult decisions and ultimately take responsibility for an organization’s information governance policy development and enforcement processes.
In certain situations the legal department can provide an easy starting point, but the process still demands some careful thinking.
“In risk-averse or highly litigious companies, the legal department should own the information governance program, but they should hire an information management person at a high level,” said Debra Logan, an enterprise information management and governance analyst at Gartner Inc. “Lawyers understand the risk and need and they will delegate responsibility – they have a hammer and see the nails that are sticking up.”
When an information governance program is owned by a legal department, its shape tends to be focused on hunkering down to mitigate risk rather than also being open to business value, she said.
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Source: SearchContentManagement.com
By: Chris Maxcer
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Self Collections in E-Discovery – Just too Risky for Prime Time
In past blogs I’ve discussed a number of cases that have expressed skepticism over the self collection of electronically stored information (ESI) in the electronic discovery process. In many of these cases, the reviewing judge or magistrate has looked at this process with an increasingly jaundiced eye, in some cases using the self collection component as part of its rationale for sanctions.
My conclusion up until now has been that this collection methodology (where employees manually select and potentially harvest their own data) could be defensible if properly executed; meaning with the requisite level of attorney guidance and oversight. And, while this is still technically accurate, I think the pendulum has swung far enough to proclaim that this approach is simply far too dangerous for most enterprises, except perhaps those that are extremely risk tolerant.
While there was no particular straw that broke the camel’s back, the trend in the case law now seems to be moving inextricably in one direction – i.e., that self (or manual) collection is no longer safe enough for average enterprises. Just like tight rope walking without a safety net, self collection protocols aren’t inherently doomed to failure, but there isn’t much (probably any) margin for error.
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Source: eDiscovery 2.0
By: Dean Gonsowski
Court Rejects "Shifting Duty" Theory of Preservation, Denies Sanctions Absent Showing that Crucial Evidence was Destroyed in Bad Faith
Point Blank Solutions, Inc. v. Toyobo Am., Inc., No. 09-6116-CIV, 2011 WL 1456029 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 5, 2011)
Plaintiffs sought sanctions for defendants’ alleged spoliation of evidence, including email correspondence, communications with other body armor manufacturers, and internal communications, among other things. Finding that plaintiffs failed to show that crucial evidence was destroyed in bad faith, as is required for an adverse inference in the 11th Circuit, the court denied plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions.
Defendants manufactured Zylon, a product used by plaintiffs and other manufacturers in the production of body armor. In June 2003, a 100% Zylon vest manufactured by Second Chance Body Armor (a non-party to the present litigation) failed when a police officer was shot. Following the failure of the vest, defendants hired a PR firm to assist with messaging, etc. surrounding possible litigation, although none had yet been initiated. In November 2003, defendants were “sued across the county in numerous cases involving Zylon-containing vests” (although, apparently, none of these suits involved the plaintiffs in the present action) and the government initiated its own investigation of Zylon-containing body armor. Also in November 2003 defendants’ counsel requested a list of documents in connection with litigation and an oral litigation hold was issued, although the scope of the hold was not definitively ascertained. In January 2004 defendants were served with a request for production from the Massachusetts AG which sought copies of all correspondence with certain body armor manufacturers, including plaintiffs. A similar request was issued from a Michigan state court in July 2004. In April 2004, defendants and Armor Holdings, a body armor manufacturer, were jointly sued in a class action lawsuit. In August 2004, defendants were served with a government subpoena seeking evidence related to defendants’ communications with vest manufacturers other than Second Chance (which would have included plaintiffs). Despite all of this, defendants maintained that litigation with plaintiffs was not anticipated until at least 2006 (and thus no duty to preserve existed until that time), in large part because until that time, plaintiffs continued to “tout the merits of Zylon.”
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Source: ediscoverylaw.com
200 Terabytes of Government E-Discovery Abuse
In United States v. Faulkner (N.D. Tex. Dec. 28, 2010), the U.S. government accused 19 defendants of having participated in a criminal conspiracy over the course of seven years. The defendants are alleged to have created fraudulent companies to exceed authorized access to the victim companies’ computer systems, as well as failing to pay for leased equipment, services, and premises.
What the government didn’t tell the defendants is that it would make it exceedingly difficult to conduct a proper defense by burying them in a Kafkaesque amount of electronically stored information (i) deemed irrelevant by the federal district court and (ii) that would ultimately lead the court to grant one defendant’s Motion to continue his trial. In the face of the evidence, described below, the government did not even object. The court granted the Motion, finding that serving “the ends of justice by taking such action outweighs the best interests of the public and the defendant to a speedy trial.” This is no small measure given the court’s obligations under the Speedy Trial Act, which aims to ensure that defendants are not subjected to unfair judicial proceedings stemming from delay.
This case is also noteworthy in light of the court’s appointment of a “coordinating discovery attorney” for the defendants given the complexities and massive volume of electronic discovery produced by the government.
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Source: blogs.forbes.com
By: Ben Kerschberg
Social media: To ban or not to ban
Businesses are split on whether employees should use social networking
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Source: montrealgazette.com
By: CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN, MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
Scott Austin makes a living arguing lawsuits over online privacy matters. He understands why his former law firm has a strict policy forbidding social networking in the workplace. But Austin saw firsthand the dilemma a business faces when young associates came to him frustrated: "They were saying we need it because it's the way our potential clients communicate."
While most companies understand the value of connecting with customers online in social networks, some also fear employees will waste work time or worse, reveal confidential information or offend a customer or co-worker.
With social networking exploding, at some point this year, every business will have to confront the challenge and answer this question: Embrace it or ban it?
As a boss, Max Borges chose to embrace it. His Miami agency provides marketing to consumer electronics and personal technology manufacturers. It is flush with young account executives whom Borges trusts to use social networking productively, even at the office. "They work hard and get their job done. I know they might be posting during the day, but if they were slacking, it wouldn't go unnoticed."
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Source: montrealgazette.com
By: CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN, MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
Yahoo to retain search data for 18 months
Backtracking from previous commitments, Yahoo now says it will retain users' Internet search records for 18 months - a dramatic increase from 90 days
Back in 2008, Yahoo broke with most of the Internet search industry by announcing it was reducing the amount of time it retained users’ Internet search data to a mere 90 days. Now the company is backpedaling, announcing that it is extending its data retention period for search data to 18 months. The new retention period puts the company in line with search giant Google, which never backed down from its long-standing 18-month retention policy.
Yahoo plans to begin extending the retention period this summer, and plans to notify customers before it does so. The retained search data will include things like user’s IP addresses and cookies, which means the data can in many cases be linked to individual devices or people. After 18 months, Yahoo will retain most of the data, but anonymize it so it cannot be linked to individuals. Yahoo’s data retention plans may also extend beyond search data: the company has indicated it is considering keeping hold of other forms of user information as well.
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Source: digitaltrends.com
By: Geoff Duncan
Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops
ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.
ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.
"Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide," ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. "No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure."
A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.
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Source: thenewspaper.com
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Source: thenewspaper.com
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Developing an information governance strategy: tips on getting started
Because information governance is a new and evolving discipline, getting started can seem particularly daunting – especially when information is in various states of cleanliness and consistency across an organization. Worse yet, new types of unstructured information aren’t waiting for a governance plan before bursting onto the scene.
With so many moving targets, information governance best practices may not all be applicable to an individual organization. But they can help a fledgling information governance team illuminate areas of opportunity and create both strategic and tactical plans, according to industry analysts.
“Picking the right place to start is difficult and also different for every organization,” said Barclay Blair, president and founder of consulting and professional services firm ViaLumina Group. But he added that an information governance strategy doesn’t have to begin with a mass remediation of existing content. “Many companies unfortunately do view that as the first step,” Blair said. “Given that it can feel like stepping off a ledge, it makes sense that their information governance projects are often paralyzed.”
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Source: searchcontentmanagement.com
By: Chris Maxcer
Use the Preliminary Conference to Save E-Discovery Costs
All too often in today's litigation environment, electronic discovery issues turn into expensive deathtraps that threaten to overwhelm the merits of the actual dispute between the parties. But prepared litigants can and should take measures to avoid the "gotcha" pitfalls attendant to e-discovery long before the terabytes have been put through the thresher.
One of the best strategies for avoiding obvious e-discovery hazards (other than winning an early Twombly motion) is to become fully informed about a client's information technology structure at the outset of a case. By now, sophisticated litigants understand that taking this critical step helps clients comply with their production obligations and avoid spoliation claims. Of course, gaining the same familiarity with the other side's systems is equally important, particularly since doing so early in a case, before discovery requests are served, can lead to a more productive and efficient exchange of information.
The prevailing view in both New York state and federal courts is that parties are free to use discovery devices, such as the deposition of a corporate representative, to explore an adversary's information technology systems to discover the location of potentially relevant documents. But, as we know, formal discovery devices can be expensive and time consuming for both parties and are, therefore, not the most efficient ways to gather information.
While both the New York Uniform Trial Court Rules and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contemplate that the parties will engage in a frank discussion early in the case about e-discovery, this process is all too often ignored or not fully taken advantage of. And that is a shame. By demonstrating to your adversary at an early stage that you understand your client's IT infrastructure and are prepared to answer basic questions about it on an informal basis, the costly use of formal discovery devices to explore these issues may be avoided.
Such preparedness may also force your adversary into a quid pro quo through which you can learn valuable information about the other side's systems.
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Source: New York Law Journal
By: Michael B. de Leeuw and Eric A. Hirsch
Hope for Reversing Commoditization of Document Review?
Fact investigation is the bedrock of litigation, and in many cases document review is the bedrock of fact investigation. But in the modern age, when computers create and retain far more information than was ever before thought possible, the old model of manual document review is becoming increasingly unworkable.
Driven by 20th century notions of liberal discovery, that model is typically characterized by broad discovery demands, counsel's collection of all potentially responsive documents, and the manual review of those documents for responsiveness and privilege before production.
Whatever its merits in a paper-driven world, this approach is ill-suited to even mid-sized cases today, which can involve "documents," i.e., computer data, more voluminous than all of the information in a large library. To review that volume of material in the timeframes demanded in litigation or government investigations, clients must hire dozens or hundreds of temporary document reviewers. These reviewers march through the data in assembly-line fashion and separate it into responsive, non-responsive, privileged and non-privileged piles, often without even trying to identify the small number of truly important documents.
Not only are such large numbers of reviewers expensive, but they can be notoriously difficult to manage and often produce uneven results.
As highlighted in a March 4, 2011, front-page New York Times story, however, technological solutions are emerging that will change how lawyers review documents.1 If these solutions work as expected, they will have significant implications for the practice of law. This article examines some of those implications from the vantage point of having substantial personal experience with some of these new tools.
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Source: New York Law Journal
By: Robert W. Trenchard and Steven Berrent
Global CIO: Analytics Will Take Over Your Company
Did you read the Michael Lewis book "Moneyball"? Of course you did...and you were impressed with how using numbers and finding relationships allowed a tier-two city (Oakland) to have a tier-one Major League Baseball team, a team that was often in contention with a below-average payroll.
That same thinking is changing the business world. It's the murky world of business analytics, and it's going to take over your company and industry. Get ready.
Who's going to be using this software? Who isn't. The Pricing people want to know yield management, which for Marriott means should it charge you more for your room if you aren't invading the mini bar. The Loyalty people are trying to find out which of your customers will yield the highest lifetime value. The HR people want to identify which job candidates are going to be outperformers...and will stay with your company. The Logistics people want to learn new patterns of suppliers.
It ain't going to stop. Progressive Insurance found that if it looked at people's credit scores, it could find who it should and should not insure--the higher the score, the less likely the potential customer would have a costly fender bender. Just the way that Harrah's can know that if you haven't shown up at one of its casinos in two months, it's better off baiting you with $50 in chips than a free room.
Years ago we called this business intelligence. You have been accumulating data--reams of data--and what have you really done with it? Mostly nothing. But that's changing.
Companies are beginning to compete using predictive analytics. Can I estimate what pricing can fill my airplane? Can I find which route can get my delivery trucks back home faster? Faster with less fuel? At what time? On which days?
Companies are actually sharing some of these geek findings, the idea being that they benefit if their competitors aren't so stupid. Max Hopper, a recently deceased friend of mine and the architect of the American Airlines Sabre reservation system, once said: "In the airline industry, we are slaves to our dumbest competitor"--so having smarter competitors means they aren't pricing incorrectly and forcing you to follow them.
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Source: Informationweek
By: Howard Anderson
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Practice of Law in the Era of 'Big Data'
"Big Data," a name for new data-analysis technologies as well as a movement to develop real-world uses for these capabilities, holds big promise. With regard to the practice of law, the impact of these technologies on electronic discovery is likely the first practical application that comes to mind. Managing the burdens of the information explosion, including volumes of data that made manual review impractical, expensive, and less effective than necessary, was the last paradigm shift in the practice. With Big Data tools, the focus turns from managing the burden of large amounts of information to leveraging its value. See, e.g., John Markoff, "Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software," N.Y. Times, March 4, 2011.
Another practical application of Big Data will be to predict the outcome of disputes with a greater level of accuracy and granularity than now possible. In one interesting study, new insights into the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence were revealed through modeling and animating the cases the Court relied upon in its opinions over time. See Computational Legal Studies, "The Development of Structure in the Citation Network of the United States Supreme Court -- Now in HD!."
The analytical power of Big Data, however, also raises big concerns. For example, outside the practice of law, Big Data techniques have proven effective at suggesting new courses of action to battle illness. However, there is at least a chance that the results of such a study could backfire against the study participants, by enabling, for example, discrimination against those who are most likely to get sick. In one possible scenario, these results could provide a prospective employer with the information needed to identify potential hires who are most likely to get sick and miss work. See, e.g., Nicholas Bakalar, "What's a Little Swine Flu Outbreak Among Friends?," N.Y. Times, Feb. 3, 2011. Accordingly, it is important to question the impact of Big Data. As a start to this conversation, this article addresses several of the resulting privacy concerns.
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Source: law.com
By: Nolan M. Goldberg and Micah w. Miller
E-Discovery: A Growing Trend For Increasing Efficiencies Using IT
E-discovery is a growing trend in many industries especially in the legal and federal governments.
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Source: CIO Zone
By: IE Discovery
Government agencies are handling more complex electronic litigation discovery requests and are gaining in their ability to manage them, according to a study released recently.
Commissioned by IE Discovery Inc., the 2010 Benchmarking Study of Electronic Discovery Practices for Government Agencies Survey revealed that while budget constraints are rising for agencies, 61 percent of government employees claim to be “more confident” in their ability to manage e-discovery. Forty-six government attorneys, paralegals and information technology personnel from 24 government agencies took part in the survey.
Conducted annually, the survey also revealed a reduced reliance on paper, more work being done in-house and an overall higher volume of data to manage.
Other points uncovered in the study include:
- Government agencies have no standard approach to impose and manage litigation holds.
- Almost one-half of agencies are now collecting “structured data” in repositories, databases and similar systems.
- The form of production varies greatly. Almost 40 percent of respondents reported producing discovery requests in image and text formats, 37 percent in native file formats and only 41 percent on paper.
Bill Detamore, IE Discovery’s chief legal officer, said that government agencies should look at improving their early data assessment strategies, which in the long run, could save money by reducing the sheer size of data sets they handle.
“Gaining competence in this area may be one way for government discovery professionals to better leverage their limited resources and fulfill the expectation to do more with less,” he said in a statement.
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Source: CIO Zone
By: IE Discovery
E-discovery ROI: “priceless?”
It’s tax season, and in the spirit of bureaucratic accounting calculations, we’ve been working on a project to determine potential ROI for e-discovery investments. Vendor claims aside, this is harder than it sounds for many enterprise customers.
Parsing software prices is tough enough–this is well-documented, and the shift towards SaaS can make it even more complicated to calculate on both sides. But in order to figure out what a company can save with a potential investment, first it has to understand what it’s already spending, and what it’s getting for the price. Since e-discovery has traditionally been outsourced to service providers and law firms (often with limited or inconsistent internal tracking), the costs may have been billed back through a third party with few line-items broken out for individual tasks.
Even if you have an idea of the services rendered, there isn’t always consistency in pricing from providers, and the structures can be complex. There may be various rates for collection: a daily “all-in” rate, a per-custodian rate, a data volume rate, an hourly rate–and in the event of iterative collections, these may require another whole day’s fee for later trips “back to the well” as the scope of an investigation increases. Processing is priced at different per-GB rates pre-extraction vs. post-extraction. “Caps” on total volume may require an additional flat fee and different per-GB rate once the maximum is reached. Culling options are varied, and may be charged by the data “culled out,” the data that gets promoted to review, or another measure. Then there’s the matter of how many seats, how many clicks, how many GBs, documents, pages, of what data type, and many other factors.
This is not to blame service providers–pricing e-discovery in a dynamic market is no easy task, and everybody needs to make a living. Compounding the problem is the fact that clients have sometimes demanded reverse-auctions and outright race-to-the-bottom price wars in recent years, as processing fees commoditized and “all-in” per-GB rates have become more widespread. Customers offering optimistic project scopes and demanding unrealistic up-front estimates can easily end up biting off more than they can chew in downstream “incidentals,” when complications arise or investigations take an unplanned turn (as they often do).
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Source: Enterprise Strategy Group
By: Katey Wood
Sunday, April 17, 2011
E-Discovery and Vanishing Text Messages
As always, should you or any of your I.M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Mission: Impossible (1966).
Covert communications have come a long way since the old "Mission: Impossible" means of ensuring that confidential messages remain secure.[FOOTNOTE 1] New technologies have emerged that let users set the shelf-life of text messages they have sent, causing the messages to expire and be deleted after a preset period of time.[FOOTNOTE 2] This new means of communicating -- where messages can be there one minute and gone the next -- raises a host of questions for practitioners in the rapidly developing landscape of electronic discovery.
An informed discussion of the challenges inherent in these ephemeral text messages is necessarily grounded by the general principles governing what is discoverable, and the obligation to preserve evidence. As a preliminary matter, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 sets forth broad guidelines for establishing what is discoverable. Rule 26(b)(1) provides, inter alia: "Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense[.] ... Relevant information need not be admissible at the trial if the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." Under this general framework, text messages, which have become a ubiquitous means of communication, are clearly discoverable.[FOOTNOTE 3]
The obligation to preserve evidence when a party "reasonably anticipates litigation" is "well established."[FOOTNOTE 4] As Judge Shira Scheindlin held in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, LLC,[FOOTNOTE 5] "[o]nce a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must suspend its routine document retention/destruction policy and put in place a 'litigation hold[.]'"[FOOTNOTE 6] A "litigation hold," or "legal hold," has been defined by The Sedona Conference[FOOTNOTE 7] as:
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Scott J. Farrell and Gina M. Serra
Covert communications have come a long way since the old "Mission: Impossible" means of ensuring that confidential messages remain secure.[FOOTNOTE 1] New technologies have emerged that let users set the shelf-life of text messages they have sent, causing the messages to expire and be deleted after a preset period of time.[FOOTNOTE 2] This new means of communicating -- where messages can be there one minute and gone the next -- raises a host of questions for practitioners in the rapidly developing landscape of electronic discovery.
An informed discussion of the challenges inherent in these ephemeral text messages is necessarily grounded by the general principles governing what is discoverable, and the obligation to preserve evidence. As a preliminary matter, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 sets forth broad guidelines for establishing what is discoverable. Rule 26(b)(1) provides, inter alia: "Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense[.] ... Relevant information need not be admissible at the trial if the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." Under this general framework, text messages, which have become a ubiquitous means of communication, are clearly discoverable.[FOOTNOTE 3]
The obligation to preserve evidence when a party "reasonably anticipates litigation" is "well established."[FOOTNOTE 4] As Judge Shira Scheindlin held in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, LLC,[FOOTNOTE 5] "[o]nce a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must suspend its routine document retention/destruction policy and put in place a 'litigation hold[.]'"[FOOTNOTE 6] A "litigation hold," or "legal hold," has been defined by The Sedona Conference[FOOTNOTE 7] as:
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Scott J. Farrell and Gina M. Serra
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Experts: E-discovery Might Be Pricey But Oh, So Worth It!
When it comes to e-discovery, it all boils down to being prepared. That’s certainly what Matt Berry, president of Lateral Data, a software development and data processing company, says.
With e-discovery solutions, technology used to collect records and data that can be later used as evidence in a case, preparedness definitely comes more easily. And since courts typically take a dim view of companies that fail to manage their records properly, the impact of e-discovery software can be quite tangible.
‘The availability of e-discovery technology solutions and service providers today has somewhat leveled the e-discovery playing field,’ says Berry. ‘Again, regardless of a company's size, better preparation equals a better e-discovery outcome.’
Recently, e-discovery has been getting a good deal of attention. As businesses have moved from telephone to email as the prevailing method of communication, vast amounts of data have become available for attorneys seeking information that may support their case. This has led to high demand for e-discovery solutions,which reduce the time it takes to identify and manage information through the process.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: businessinsider.com
By: Aarti Maharaj
With e-discovery solutions, technology used to collect records and data that can be later used as evidence in a case, preparedness definitely comes more easily. And since courts typically take a dim view of companies that fail to manage their records properly, the impact of e-discovery software can be quite tangible.
‘The availability of e-discovery technology solutions and service providers today has somewhat leveled the e-discovery playing field,’ says Berry. ‘Again, regardless of a company's size, better preparation equals a better e-discovery outcome.’
Recently, e-discovery has been getting a good deal of attention. As businesses have moved from telephone to email as the prevailing method of communication, vast amounts of data have become available for attorneys seeking information that may support their case. This has led to high demand for e-discovery solutions,which reduce the time it takes to identify and manage information through the process.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: businessinsider.com
By: Aarti Maharaj
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Toshiba releases self-erasing drives
The Toshiba Self-Encrypting Drives perform a crypto-erase when connected to an unauthorized host
Toshiba Wednesday unveiled its first family of self-encrypting hard disk drives (HDDs) that can also erase data when connected to an unknown host.
The new Toshiba Self-Encrypting Drives (SED) (models MKxx61GSYG) enable system manufacturers to configure different data invalidation options that align with various end-user scenarios.
Toshiba's new SED hard driveThe new 2.5-in, 7,200 rpm drives are targeted for use in PCs, copiers and multi-function printers, along with point-of-sale systems used in government, financial, medical, or similar environments that need to protect sensitive information.
The drives come in capacities ranging from 160GB to 640GB, and have 16MB of buffer memory, and use the serial ATA (SATA) 2.0 specification, which affords up to 3Gbit/sec throughput.
When initially powered up, Toshiba's new SED HDDs and their host perform an authentication process. If the authentication fails, the drive can be configured to simply deny access or perform cryptographic erase on specified blocks of data. Cryptographic erase is the process by which keys that allow a system to decrypt data are deleted, leaving the data permanently encrypted and unreadable.
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Source: computerworld.com
By: Lucas Mearian
Toshiba Wednesday unveiled its first family of self-encrypting hard disk drives (HDDs) that can also erase data when connected to an unknown host.
The new Toshiba Self-Encrypting Drives (SED) (models MKxx61GSYG) enable system manufacturers to configure different data invalidation options that align with various end-user scenarios.
Toshiba's new SED hard driveThe new 2.5-in, 7,200 rpm drives are targeted for use in PCs, copiers and multi-function printers, along with point-of-sale systems used in government, financial, medical, or similar environments that need to protect sensitive information.
The drives come in capacities ranging from 160GB to 640GB, and have 16MB of buffer memory, and use the serial ATA (SATA) 2.0 specification, which affords up to 3Gbit/sec throughput.
When initially powered up, Toshiba's new SED HDDs and their host perform an authentication process. If the authentication fails, the drive can be configured to simply deny access or perform cryptographic erase on specified blocks of data. Cryptographic erase is the process by which keys that allow a system to decrypt data are deleted, leaving the data permanently encrypted and unreadable.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: computerworld.com
By: Lucas Mearian
As Law Firms Fly Into Cloud Computing, Will CIOs Matter?
When Harvard Business Review published Nicholas Carr's 2004 book, Does IT Matter?, the reaction was incendiary. Carr argued that technological, economic, and competitive forces were combining to transform the role IT plays in business, and that technology had become a commodity that doesn't provide competitive advantages. Two Harvard business professors were among the many readers who declared Carr, in essence, clueless.
At the time, the legal IT community was not amused. How dare he! We support vast infrastructures with multiple application platforms used by highly intellectual users. To show Carr how wrong he was we invested in greener data centers, virtualization, and, of course, cloud computing.
But Carr's controversial commentary resonates even more strongly today. In fact, let's update the original question, "Does IT Matter," to "Do CIOs Matter?" Cloud computing (where firms use web-based software maintained by the vendor) is the antithesis of Carr's basic premise that scarcity of a function provides a competitive advantage. With cloud computing, firms do not need scores of IT personnel to install, deploy, permission, upgrade, integrate, and repair every technology the firm wants its personnel to use. The cloud makes law firms small and large citizens of the cyber world.
But does cloud computing change the role of law firm CIOs? After all, to be blunt, aren't we all pretty fungible? We're all doing the same thing. Anyone dare to be on something other than a Microsoft Office suite? Anyone not virtualizing? News flash: Migrating to Windows 7 and Office 2010 isn't a competitive advantage.
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Source: law.com
By: Chris Romano
At the time, the legal IT community was not amused. How dare he! We support vast infrastructures with multiple application platforms used by highly intellectual users. To show Carr how wrong he was we invested in greener data centers, virtualization, and, of course, cloud computing.
But Carr's controversial commentary resonates even more strongly today. In fact, let's update the original question, "Does IT Matter," to "Do CIOs Matter?" Cloud computing (where firms use web-based software maintained by the vendor) is the antithesis of Carr's basic premise that scarcity of a function provides a competitive advantage. With cloud computing, firms do not need scores of IT personnel to install, deploy, permission, upgrade, integrate, and repair every technology the firm wants its personnel to use. The cloud makes law firms small and large citizens of the cyber world.
But does cloud computing change the role of law firm CIOs? After all, to be blunt, aren't we all pretty fungible? We're all doing the same thing. Anyone dare to be on something other than a Microsoft Office suite? Anyone not virtualizing? News flash: Migrating to Windows 7 and Office 2010 isn't a competitive advantage.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: law.com
By: Chris Romano
Google facing hurdles in bid to provide email service to governments
More than a year after the city of L.A. awarded Google a contract to provide email for its employees, the city controller has launched an inquiry over delays.
Google Inc.'s big push to supply email services to governments around the country is running into headwinds both from federal agencies and its marquee client, Los Angeles City Hall.
More than a year after the city awarded Google a $7.2-million contract to provide email for its 30,000 employees, Google has been unable to meet crucial security requirements, preventing nearly half of city personnel from moving to the new system, according to city officials. The city's controller has launched an inquiry, and City Council members have held closed-door meetings to confer with attorneys, raising the possibility of legal action.
The U.S. Justice Department is also raising questions about Google's claims that its email system had received federal security accreditation, which the Internet search giant has touted as a key feature of its Google Apps for Government product.
The snags come as the Mountain View, Calif., company continues to make an aggressive bid to supply secure email software to federal, state and local governments, a lucrative market long dominated by rival Microsoft Corp. and its widely used Outlook and Exchange email software. That strategy has included everything from winning over government agencies with discounted prices to suing a federal agency that picked Microsoft's email software over Google's.
To Continue Reading: Click Here
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Source: latimes.com
By: David Sarno
Google Inc.'s big push to supply email services to governments around the country is running into headwinds both from federal agencies and its marquee client, Los Angeles City Hall.
More than a year after the city awarded Google a $7.2-million contract to provide email for its 30,000 employees, Google has been unable to meet crucial security requirements, preventing nearly half of city personnel from moving to the new system, according to city officials. The city's controller has launched an inquiry, and City Council members have held closed-door meetings to confer with attorneys, raising the possibility of legal action.
The U.S. Justice Department is also raising questions about Google's claims that its email system had received federal security accreditation, which the Internet search giant has touted as a key feature of its Google Apps for Government product.
The snags come as the Mountain View, Calif., company continues to make an aggressive bid to supply secure email software to federal, state and local governments, a lucrative market long dominated by rival Microsoft Corp. and its widely used Outlook and Exchange email software. That strategy has included everything from winning over government agencies with discounted prices to suing a federal agency that picked Microsoft's email software over Google's.
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Source: latimes.com
By: David Sarno
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