Is it Really Possible to Accurately Review Close to a Million Emails Over a Weekend?

February 6, 2023

Q: Is it really possible to accurately review close to a million emails over a weekend?

A: It depends.

In connection with an ongoing controversy about alleged inappropriate emails sent from the Premier’s office to the provincial prosecutorial service (ACPS), the Alberta government recently confirmed that it had identified emails from over 900+ email accounts and caused almost one million emails to be searched by provincial government employees in an effort to establish that the alleged emails had not been sent. All this was said to have occurred within three/four days of the Premier’s direction that the review be conducted.… Read More

Preservation Obligations may change with new Auto-Expiration of Teams Meeting Recordings

Candice Chan-Glasgow

Director, Review Services and Counsel

February 7, 2022

Parties to anticipated litigation should be mindful of announced changes to the auto-expiration of Teams recordings and their preservation obligations once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

In July 2021, Microsoft announced the initial development of a new auto-expiration feature on Microsoft Teams meeting recordings stored on OneDrive and Sharepoint. On January 31, 2022, Microsoft announced that the default auto-expiration period for Teams recordings will increase to 120 days from the previously announced 60 days.

New recordings will be set to automatically expire 120 days after they are recorded if no action is taken.… Read More

US Case Law Update: Failing to suspend routine document retention process leads to sanctions

December 15, 2021

In a recent case from the United States, the failure to properly implement a legal hold led to a motion for spoliation sanctions.

In Mahboob v. Educ. Credit Mgmt. Corp., Case No.: 15-cv-0628-TWR-AGS (S.D. Cal. Mar. 1, 2021), the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to suspend its two-year document retention policy, which resulted in the loss of months of relevant call data and recordings. Countering, the defendant argued that the plaintiff’s motion should be denied due to unreasonable delay.

In the result, the Magistrate Judge granted the plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions, in part. … Read More

To what Extent do Lawyers need to Supervise Document Disclosure?

Vladyslav (Vlad) Strashko

Associate

November 8, 2021

In 2020, several US court decisions dealt with lawyers who failed to properly supervise the discovery process, for example by allowing their clients to “self-collect” records (see Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n v. M1 5100 Corp., Civil No. 19-cv-81320-DIMITROULEAS/MATTHEWMAN (S.D. Fla. Jul. 2, 2020)) or not taking reasonable effort to ensure that the client produced all required documents (see Optronic Techs. v. Ningbo Sunny Elec. Co., Case No. 16-cv-06370-EJD (VKD) (N.D. Cal. Jun. 1, 2020)).

In the first example, the lawyer received a warning from the judge, but escaped sanctions because the discovery process was not yet complete. … Read More

Towards More Efficient and Cost-effective Discovery

Crystal O’Donnell

Chief Executive Officer and Senior Counsel

November 3, 2021

Discovery is typically the most time-consuming and expensive aspect of any legal dispute. This article provides some practical guidance and key tips for minimizing risk and cost for enterprises involved in disputes or regulatory matters that require the production of electronically stored information (ESI).

The most effective way to minimize eDiscovery cost and risk is to start with good document management and retention policies. While document management and retention are substantive and complex areas, there are a couple things that do not require software or expenditure that can make a substantial difference. … Read More