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

Heuristica Celebrates First Anniversary with Expanded Team

Heuristica Discovery Counsel is celebrating its first anniversary and thanks to an extremely successful first year is pleased to announce the addition of two key positions at the firm.

With the addition of several major new clients Heuristica recently has recruited Alan Dingle and Keith Bedford.

Alan and Keith bring relevant expertise and experience to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of the market and our clients. The two new positions enable Heuristica to continue its expansion and ensure that it continues to exceed client expectations.

Alan Dingle joins Heuristica as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. … Read More

Court Orders Production of Files in “Usable” Format

On May 24^th, the Alberta Court of the Queen’s Bench ruled that, in certain circumstances, meaningful disclosure requires the production of native electronic files.

Background and Arguments

In Bard v Canadian Natural Resources,[1] the plaintiffs brought a motion requesting, amongst other things, that the court order the defendants to deliver native Excel spreadsheets. The defendant had provided the data in TIFF image files as agreed to by the parties in the discovery plan. The plaintiffs claimed that TIFFs were not a “usable” format.