The December 2006 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
addressing discovery of electronically stored information, underscored
the fact that no lawyer today can afford to ignore e-discovery. No
matter the case, no matter the court, digital data is likely to be
implicated.
That means
lawyers urgently need to understand e-discovery and keep abreast of developments
in the field. In this article, we provide a guide to some of the more useful
Web sites for learning about and keeping current with this essential area of
practice. We also survey blogs about e-discovery and look at some vendors'
sites that include useful resources.
For all it offers, DiscoveryResources may be the leading e-discovery portal. Even though the site is sponsored
by e-discovery company Fios, it foregoes commerce in deference to its
mission, which is to provide news, information and resources about
e-discovery. Through both original content and outside links, the site
provides timely news stories, substantive articles, tutorials, seminars,
podcasts, legal forms and other tools. A recent overhaul made the site
easier to navigate and added RSS feeds for tracking the latest news
and information.
Another
useful entry point to resources on e-discovery is the American Bar
Association's Legal
Technology Resource Center.
The site devotes a section to courtroom technology and, within that,
a guide to e-discovery resources. While not extensive, the guide
is a good starting point.
If you want to know what federal judges know about e-discovery, you
will find no better source than Ken
Withers.
In his former role as education attorney for the Federal Judicial Center,
Withers taught judges about e-discovery and technology. In 2005, he
left that post to become director of judicial education for The Sedona
Conference. His personal site archives his many articles and presentations,
discusses e-discovery rulemaking, and provides links to e-discovery
resources elsewhere on the Web.
A lawyer well known in the e-discovery field is Michael Arkfeld, author
of the treatise Electronic Discovery and Evidence. Recently,
he unveiled a comprehensive Web site on the topic, eLawExchange.
A central feature of this free site is a database of e-discovery case
law and rules from all 50 states. A second database contains information
on individuals and companies that provide e-discovery services and
consulting. Other features of the site include articles on e-discovery
and links to related resources.
California lawyer Richard E. Best started posting his civil discovery
outlines on the Web in 1999 and has continued to update them ever since
at California
Civil Discovery Law.
There is an extensive collection of resources covering state and federal
e-discovery, as well as related issues such as e-discovery ethics.
Another e-discovery veteran, Rob Robinson, a marketing executive who
has worked with several e-discovery companies, maintains the Web site Complex
Discovery,
which he describes as a source for "information, tools and tactics
relevant to the growing discovery market." The site is organized
around key e-discovery stages, such as collection, processing, review
and production, and includes a number of useful resources. In addition
to what you might expect – articles, news items, guidelines
and the like – Robinson has included such innovative features
as an aggregation of key e-discovery RSS feeds and his own Twitter
feed.
The Electronic
Evidence Information Center is a fairly modest collection of
links to resources and conferences relating to e-discovery and computer
forensics. Worth noting is the site's page collecting links to mobile
phone forensics tools.
In May
2007, a new e-discovery organization came into being and with it,
a new Web site worth checking out. Women
in eDiscovery
focuses on women in law and business with an interest in legal technology.
The
rapid growth of e-discovery in recent years has left the horse often
trailing the cart. A number of organizations are now working to develop
standards and practices with the goal of harmonizing e-discovery across
courts and industries.
A leader
in this research is The Sedona Conference,
a non-profit organization devoted to innovation in antitrust law, complex
litigation and intellectual property law. It has devoted substantial
work to the establishment of best practices in e-discovery. In
June 2007, it released the second edition of The Sedona Principles on
e-discovery. This document and many others are available through the
Sedona site.
Given its goal of enhancing the administration of justice, the National
Center for State Courts is immersed in issues surrounding e-discovery in state courts. In August
2006, it published an extensive set of e-discovery guidelines for state
trial courts, which is available as a download from this site. Elsewhere,
the site compiles research and resources on e-discovery and houses
a variety of articles on the topic.
Directed by legal technology consultant, writer and speaker Tom O'Connor,
the Legal
Electronic Document Institute
is a non-profit organization devoted to the development of education
and standards related to legal electronic documents. Its areas of focus
include practice management, electronic trial practice and litigation
support, e-filing, e-signatures and e-discovery.
Similarly, the Electronic
Discovery Institute
describes itself as a public-interest organization conducting research
into the efficacy of various methods of e-discovery. According to the
site, the institute's inaugural study is underway, testing the reliability
of search and retrieval technology. Once completed, the study will
be published on the site.
While the foregoing entities focus on e-discovery practices, Socha
Consulting
takes a different tack with its annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic
Discovery Survey. Think of it as the Consumer Reports of
e-discovery vendors. The survey ranks the top e-discovery companies
and provides information on many others. The full survey is pricey – $5,000
for 2007 – but a free summary titled Mining
for Gold was published in the August Law Technology
News. Socha's site
includes various free resources as well.
From the publishers of the Socha-Gelbmann survey comes this related
site, The Electronic Discovery Reference Model.
Originally the site was devoted to development of a model set of standards
and guidelines governing e-discovery. With the model now in place and
in the public domain, the site focuses on its deployment.
EDDix
is a company devoted to research, analysis and reporting on e-discovery.
The "ix" in its name stands for "information exchange." Through
this site, the company sells various publications containing its research
and also provides links to news and resources relating to e-discovery.
A
number of sites house original news stories, practice pieces, white
papers, seminar presentations and other materials devoted to e-discovery.
Law.com's
Legal Technology Center, for example, maintains a useful section devoted
to Electronic
Data Discovery. It features news articles and expert
commentary written for the site and drawn from legal newspapers and
magazines. An "E-Discovery
Roadmap" lets
you navigate your way through steps in the e-discovery process and
learn about their requirements and best practices.
Craig
Ball
is a board-certified trial lawyer and a certified forensic examiner,
a combination that uniquely qualifies him as an e-discovery consultant
and prolific writer on e-discovery and computer forensics. His Web
site collects his regular column together with a variety of his articles
and presentations.
LLRX
has long been a superior site for articles and resources on law technology
and practice. The site features articles and updates covering e-discovery.
A
collection of e-discovery materials from the Federal
Judicial Center
can be found by following the "materials on electronic discovery" link
from its front page. The collection focuses on civil litigation and
includes FJC workshop and seminar materials, research and publications,
along with links to selected external materials. A link points to a
separate page of materials focused on search and seizure of electronic
data in criminal cases.
FindLaw's Electronic
Discovery Center
provides substantive articles and white papers on e-discovery along
with vendor press releases. An "E-Discovery Wizard" provides
checklists and links to articles regarding specific provisions of the
federal rules.
Law Journal Newsletters,
a division of ALM, publishes the newsletter E-Discovery Law & Strategy,
which can be reached through this site. Subscribers can view the full
text of articles as well as download the entire newsletter in PDF.
Non-subscribers can view article summaries and purchase individual
articles.
Michael Arkfeld's book Electronic Discovery and Evidence is
a leading treatise on e-discovery. The book is available for purchase
through Law Partner Publishing.
Purchasers get password access to Web-only resources available here,
including updates, forms and checklists.
A unique e-discovery resource
is the Litigation Support Vendors
Association.
This site is home to multiple, free discussion forums covering such
topics as e-discovery, computer forensics and best practices. All are
moderated by industry experts and representatives of legal-technology
companies. Jobs within the litigation support industry are also posted
here.
New
blogs devoted to e-discovery seem to appear with ever-greater frequency,
attesting to the importance of the field. Of the blogs surveyed here,
some focus on e-discovery law and practice and others on the e-discovery
industry, but all are potentially useful for keeping current with the
field.
Alextronic
Discovery - Alexander H. Lubarsky, the
California litigator who writes this blog, admits to a bit of
writer's block lately, but vows to pick up the pace of his postings.
If he does, his blog is worth following.
Dennis
Kennedy - Lawyer and consultant, Kennedy
writes about a range of legal-technology topics and frequently
covers e-discovery.
EDD
Blog Online - Written by Jeff Fehrman,
president of Electronic Evidence Labs, a division of e-discovery
vendor ONSITE3, and consultant Bob Krantz, this blog promises
an "insider's look" at e-discovery.
Many of the posts are excerpts of articles from other sources.
EDD
Update - Unveiled in September as a
joint project of Law Technology News and Law.com Legal Technology,
this blog is a venue for posting breaking news, key verdicts
and judicial rulings, articles, press releases and more. It features
a board of contributors that includes leading lawyers and consultants
in the field. You'll notice I have contributed there as well.
E-Discovery
in the Trenches - When he launched this
blog in April 2007, Jerry Bui, an e-discovery manager with KPMG,
dedicated it to those who work "directly
in the trenches on EDD projects." His most recent post was in
May 2008.
E-Discovery
Team - Ralph C. Losey, co-chair of the
e-discovery team at the law firm Akerman Senterfitt in Orlando,
writes this top-notch blog. His posts are frequent and substantive,
covering both e-discovery law and practice.
E-discovery
2.0 - Subtitled "Thoughts about
the evolution of e-discovery," this
blog is written by Aaref Hilaly, CEO of e-discovery company Clearwell
Systems.
Electronic
Discovery and Evidence - Michael
Arkfeld, author of the treatise, Electronic Discovery
and Evidence, uses this blog to report updates in the law of
e-discovery, although his postings are infrequent.
Electronic
Discovery Blog - Before he became an attorney,
the author of this blog, W. Lawrence Wescott II, was an IT manager,
a background that enables him to write knowledgeably about both
law and technology.
Electronic
Discovery Law - Technology
lawyers at the firm K & L Gates write this blog that
includes summaries of court decisions and updates on related legal
issues.
In
re Discovery - The
blog of Socha Consulting, the firm discussed in part one of this
column, that publishes the annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery
Survey.
LawTech
Guru Blog - A well-known writer on a range
of legal technology issues, Jeff Beard frequently blogs about
new developments in e-discovery.
Litigation
Support Industry News - This blog tracks
news about the companies that provide litigation support and
e-discovery services. It is written by Brad Jenkins, president
and CEO of Trial Solutions of Texas.
On
the Mark - Launched in October 2007, this
is the blog of Mark V. Reichenbach, a vice president at MetaLINCS
and two-decade veteran of e-discovery and litigation support
for companies and law firms. In his blog, he comments "on
the issues and happenings of our industry."
Ride
the Lightning - The author of this blog, lawyer
Sharon D. Nelson, is president of computer forensics company Sensei
Enterprises and a widely known speaker and writer on legal technology.
She introduced her blog in July 2007 with the goal of helping readers
better understand electronic evidence.
Sound
Evidence - One of the best known e-discovery
blogs, it is written by Mary Mack, technology counsel to e-discovery
company Fios and co-author of the book A Process of Illumination:
The Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery.
Strategic
Legal Technology - Lawyer and legal technology consultant
Ron Friedmann writes about e-discovery, litigation support, KM
and other technology topics.
A number of companies that market e-discovery services also provide
useful resources on their Web sites. In part one of this article, I
described DiscoveryResources
an e-discovery portal sponsored by the company Fios.
The company's main site,
provides an array of resources in its own right, some that overlap
with its other site and some that do not.
Other companies whose sites include useful resources for lawyers include:
Applied
Discovery - This LexisNexis division offers the
Applied Discovery Law Library, a surprisingly diverse selection
of case summaries, model forms, articles and white papers. Worth
noting is the library's collection of court rules, covering state
as well as federal rules and including links to related ethics
rulings.
Attenex - Among
the various resources available here, two offerings stand out as
particularly useful. First is the collection of "on-demand
webcasts" – previously recorded Web seminars on topics
such as best practices, controlling costs and native file review.
Also worthwhile is the library of white papers on a range of practical
e-discovery topics, many written by practitioners.
Catalyst -
CEO John Tredennick is nationally known both as an accomplished trial
lawyer with Holland & Hart and as a writer and speaker on legal
technology. The Articles tab
of the site's "In the News" page includes articles written
by Tredennick and others on e-discovery and document management.
CT
Summation - A small collection of white papers
focuses on topics relating to e-discovery and use of electronic
evidence.
Merrill
Corporation - Within
the Legal Solutions section of Merrill's site is a Knowledge Center
with a selection of articles to download. Topics include choosing
an e-discovery vendor and managing electronic evidence.
OnSite3 -
Within the Resources section of this company's Web site are two
useful tools. One, the eDiscovery
Estimator, helps
you estimate the size of an e-discovery project. The other, the XML
Load File Converter,
is software you can download for free and use for batch conversions
of data to XML format. Other resources available at this site include
podcasts and white papers on e-discovery topics.
Ontrack
Data Recovery - Discovery of electronic data sometimes
requires recovery of lost electronic
data, thanks to hard-drive damage or system failure. Ontrack's site
offers more than three dozen substantive articles and white papers
on data recovery. The easiest way to find them is via the site map.
Sensei
Enterprises - If
you've ever been to a legal technology seminar or read a legal technology
magazine, odds are you have encountered either Sharon D. Nelson or
John W. Simek, Sensei's principals. Both are popular speakers and
authors. Fortunately for those who have not, they provide a library
on their Web site of their broad-ranging articles dating back to
2002.
Stratify - Skip
the "eDiscovery Resources" section of this site,
where the focus is on pitching Stratify's products, and go instead
to its selections of white papers and published articles. The latter,
in particular, has several good pieces on e-discovery practice and
technology.
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