Author: Lauren Pallaise

Legal finance plays an increasingly common role in high-stakes commercial litigation. No longer merely a tool of necessity for cash-strapped claimants, financing is used by sophisticated lawyers and their clients as a more efficient way to manage the cost and risk of both plaintiff and defense matters while also unlocking working capital for the firm or business.

Social media has allowed individuals and businesses to communicate in new, unprecedented ways. Not surprisingly, it can be the most important evidence in your case. But identification, collection, authentication, admissibility and ethics rules require special consideration.

Leveraging hold notices, ESI protocols, meet and confer, and other opportunities obtain the evidence needed to successfully build a case. Trial lawyers often represent the primary requesting party for document-complex discovery and litigation. Increasingly, this can overwhelm how they traditionally have reviewed productions and marshalled potential evidence.

The decision to bring eDiscovery solutions in-house for a legal team is more than evaluating the software. The growth of e-discovery and data combined with adoption by the federal and state courts of FRCP rules for litigants to comply with judge expectations continues.

s the size of document collections continue to explode, finding the evidence needle in the electronically stored information (ESI) haystack is more challenging than ever. Understanding the latest tools, indexing techniques, and features associated with eDiscovery search will allow you to conduct a highly effective review while still delivering your production on time.

The Apple Mac OS for desktops and laptops and iOS for portable devices were once relegated to the sidelines in corporate America and overlooked or ignored in eDiscovery and litigation. This approach is no longer viable as electronically stored information (ESI) from Apple computers, iPhone and iPads is part of many document intensive cases today.

Native files refer to electronically stored information (ESI) stored in the format originally used, without conversion to TIFF, PDF or other paginated formats for review. Examples are Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, or email. Whether ESI should be produced and reviewed in native format can be a controversial issue in the e-Discovery arena and opinions of its appropriateness vary among experts.