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E-Discovery in the Cloud: Next Installment in Transcending the Cloud

As part of our Cloud Computing initiative, we are proud to present the next installment and chapter in our on-going series, “Transcending the Cloud: A Legal Guide to the Risks and Rewards of Cloud Computing.” This White Paper and Chapter, entitled E-Discovery in the Cloud, takes a close look at some of the challenges that lie ahead in the world of discovery, when information and applications are processed, stored, accessed and used in a cloud-computing environment.

We would like to thank Jennifer Yule DePriest and Claire Covington for their hard work in putting this together, and you should feel free to contact them directly if any questions arise or if you need help or more information. As we have in the past, we have also updated the entire work so that when you access the PDF of our “Transcending the Cloud: A Legal Guide to the Risks and Rewards of Cloud Computing” compendium, you will receive all of the sections, now updated with this “E-Discovery in the Cloud” chapter, and you will have our updated and growing body of legal and regulatory insight into Cloud Computing.

Make sure you subscribe via email or get the Legal Bytes RSS Feed so you are always in touch with our latest information. Of course, if you ever have questions, you can always contact me Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum, Adam Snukal, or any Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.

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Court Sanctions UBS for Destroying E-Mails

On July 20, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York imposed sanctions against UBS Warburg for destroying relevant e-mail messages during the course of litigation (Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, et al., 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS (S.D.N.Y, July 20, 2004)). The Court ordered UBS to pay expenses and attorney fees incurred by the plaintiff, granted plaintiff’s request for further discovery, and agreed to instruct the jury that a negative inference may be drawn against UBS as a result of the missing evidence. The case provides important guidance for counsel on electronic discovery issues and record management, and the Court notes counsel is expected to take some affirmative steps: (1) “identify sources of discoverable information”; (2) “put in place a litigation hold and make that known to all relevant employees by communicating with them directly” and not only repeat these instructions “regularly” but also “monitor compliance”; (3) “call for employees to produce copies of relevant electronic evidence”; and (4) “safeguarding any archival media” the client must preserve. Given the notoriety of the case, these practices will likely become a de facto standard in evaluating electronic discovery issues and requests for sanctions. Got litigators? Call Rimon—we not only have knowledgeable litigators, but we also have an entire team of professionals skilled in data management, record retention, and compliance in and out of litigation. Try us, you’ll like us.