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© Copyright, 2000 to  2010,  by Leonard  Bucklin.

e-Lawyering: tips and tactics for the 21st Century Lawyer. This page is devoted to "how to" articles for a litigator's use of electronic data and electronic discovery.

 "e-Lawyering" is not just for million dollar cases any more. Electronic data document requests are only the start of what you should do in almost all cases, of any size or type.

Consider the ordinary small contract or business case:

  • - More than 93 percent of all commercial documentation is in electronic form
  • - More than 87 percent of all commercial communications are e-mail messages

What is the conclusion? In all business litigation you need electronic discovery and to be prepared to disclose your client's electronic data --- and you need to be prepared to introduce electronic documentation and communications into deposition and trial evidence effectively!

In all cases, of all sorts and sizes, you need to be able to intelligently deal with digital evidence discovery including: developing the legal strategy for launching electronic data requests or responding to one, investigating the  opponent’s information technology environment, developing pointed  deposition questions, coordinating computer forensic acquisition, and preparing your own expert witnesses for deposition or court testimony.

If what you are looking for is deposition and discovery forms for use in ordinary litigation, we suggest you take a look at LawyerTrialForms.com.  Lawyer Trial Forms (LawyerTrialForms™) sells legal discovery and litigation forms for lawyers, and the forms are built for today's litigation.  Their catalog includes some forms you probably can use to good advantage.  (Time spent drafting legal work from scratch is usually time wasted; start from a form and save time, as well as gaining insights of trial tested counsel.)  For a constantly updated and changing universe of information, we suggest you take a look at DiscoveryResources.org (that is ".org", not "com"). You will find a treasure trove of up-to-date information, resources and news available about electronic discovery. If you want to keep up to date with the many new technological and legal challenges associated with electronic discovery --- Discovery Resources is a good place to start.

Tip for this month --- “Active” electronic data production in discovery requests may only represent a small portion of the whole picture. The amount of relevant evidence that is no longer “active” but deleted on a hard drive could be far more valuable to your case. This is the data you need to be looking at as well.  Seeking a protective order from the court to acquire a bit-stream copy of your opponent’s specific computer hard drives that you can identify as being pertinent to your case is the only way that you will be assured that the “good stuff” doesn’t vanish into thin air. A court will often favor having a neutral court-appointed electronics specialist firm make a bit-stream copy and deliver it directly to the court, as an officer of the court.  One firm that does this is CyberControls,’ which has a Forensics Rapid Response Team. Based upon the dynamics of the case, swift action may be critical in convincing the court to grant the discovery request before evidence is spoiled.

 
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