Welcome to Retention and Preservation!

About This Blog

Welcome to the initial post of the Retention and Preservation blog. This blog will be limited to issues of retention and legal holds; others in the blogosphere will have to cover the full range of e-discovery. At least for now, I do not expect to be the Drudge Report of electronic discovery. However, I do plan on discussing the best of the best practices for information retention, to analyze current decisions on retention and preservation, and to post practice hints from guest bloggers who are responsible for these issues every day. I hope that you will find enough interesting information to persuade you to check back from time to time.

Comments and suggestions on format or content are welcome.

Thank You

Stephanie Gonsalves and Amanda Woodrum deserve all of the credit for teaching me how to blog, counseling me when I overlooked the obvious, and, most of all, trying to keep me to a schedule. I also would like to thank Deidre Paknad, who challenged me when I suggested to her that a blog on retention and preservation would fill a need.

All of the mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Blogroll and Other Resources

On the right side you will find links to other blogs, books, and an article by Judge Scheindlin on electronic discovery sanctions. I will expand that list as I come across additional resources that I believe will help practitioners deal with these problems.

EDRM: The site operated by George Socha and Tom Gelbman. Home of the ubiquitous Electronic Discovery Reference Model, it is an excellent source of information on electronic discovery, in particular the EDRM XML Standard designed to improve the e-discovery process.

K&L|Gates: This site operated by the law firm is the single best resource for news and decisions regarding e-discovery. In addition to information on recent decisions, if you follow the links on the site you will be able to review local federal district court rules addressing e-discovery. (In future posts I will look more closely at the default standard in the District of Delaware and the “Suggested Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information” in the District of Maryland.)

The Sedona Conference: This site contains links to the Conference’s many reports, working groups, and information regarding continuing legal education on the topic, among many others, of electronic discovery.

“Discovery of Electronically Stored Information: Surveying the Legal landscape”: Magistrate Judge Hedges has written an overview of electronic discovery. A very useful introduction.

“Electronic Discovery: Law and Practice”: A loose leaf publication covering the law and technology of electronic discovery by two practitioners.

“Evaluating the Electronic Discovery Capabilities of Outside Law Firms: A Model Request for Information and Analysis”: An excellent resource that can be used as part of a due diligence process to evaluate outside counsel’s (or your own) preparedness for electronic discovery. Inexperience of counsel and vendors is a serious issue. You are not doing yourself or your client any favors if you have not thoroughly vetted the e-discovery experience of your outside counsel and vendors.

“Electronic Discovery Sanctions in the Twenty-First Century”, Shira A. Scheindlin, Kanchana Wangkeo, 11 Mich. Telecom. Tech. L. Rev. 71 (2004): A law review article authored by Judge Scheindlin and one of her law clerks that analyzes all opinions on the topic of sanctions between January 1, 2001, and the date of publication. Although it was written before the new rules went into effect, it is still the best place to start research on sanctions.