Heuristica Invited to Speak at Ontario e-Discovery Institute

Crystal O’Donnell, Heuristica’s Chief Executive Officer and Senior Counsel, will speak as part of the “e-Discovery Resources – What is New” panel at the upcoming e-Discovery Institute 2017 to be held downtown Toronto on October 16, 2017.

Now in it’s 7th year, the full-day event brings together leading experts to discuss the latest developments in e-Discovery and Information Governance. In a panel intended to update attendees on recent e-Discovery initiatives, Crystal will provide an update on the work of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, of which she is the Chair of a working group drafting proposed harmonized electronic document Rules for all civil and administrative proceedings in Canada.… Read More

From Lemonade Stand to Heuristica Discovery Counsel

Pamela Fontaine-Peters

Director, Litigation Support and Senior Law Clerk

I am thrilled to be an “official” member of the team at Heuristica Discovery Counsel in my new role of Director of Litigation Support.

I’ve worked in the legal industry for almost 25 years as a law clerk, certified trainer and eDiscovery consultant. Working at Heuristica allows me to use all of my technical skills and draw on my clerking experience. I look forward to meeting the challenges of this exciting position.

I have always loved technology. I was introduced to computers in public school playing a computer card program called Lemonade Stand. … Read More

Heuristica Delivers eDiscovery Course for ILCO

The team at Heuristica Discovery Counsel led by Crystal O’Donnell, CEO and Senior Counsel, will teach the “e -Discovery Advanced Theory & Practices for Litigation Support” course for The Institute of Law Clerks of Ontario (ILCO).

The eight-week course is designed for litigation support professionals and law clerks and explores the legal and practical principles of electronic discovery in a legal practice context. Using the EDRM and the Sedona Canada Principles, the course provides instruction on the issues and tasks underlying each phase of the eDiscovery process. Emphasizing proportionality and defensibility at every stage the program includes practical information and covers such things as cooperative discovery planning, the supporting evidence required for discovery motions, and the admissibility of evidence. … Read More

Group Seeks to Harmonize Canada’s eDiscovery Rules

Heuristica’s CEO and Senior Counsel, Crystal O’Donnell, is co-chair of a group of lawyers who wish to harmonize court rules for electronic discovery across Canada.

The group, comprised of lawyers from across the country, is drafting a proposal to submit to The Uniform Law Conference of Canada (ULCC). “One of the biggest challenges right now is the approach across jurisdictions is very ad hoc and patchwork”, says O’Donnell in the December 5th Focus on E-Discovery issue of Law Times. “For any organization or corporation dealing with litigation in multiple jurisdictions, the rules are very different and some provinces don’t have any rules yet addressing electronic evidence”.… Read More

Thinking of self-collecting? Don’t forget to consider metadata and cybersecurity.

It is important to take precautions against altering document metadata during collection of data.

Note that metadata will be altered by, for example, collecting the data and then uploading it to a cloud computing service such as Dropbox. Another potential risk with this approach is cybersecurity – consider that 68 million email addresses and passwords were stolen from Dropbox. There may be justifiable economic reasons for an organization to self-collect, however, one must be cognizant of the potential risks.