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

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

Happy Holidays from all of us at Heuristica

As the holidays approach, we wish you and yours – all the more so this year – peace of mind and goodwill.

The last 12 months has continued to teach us not to take things for granted and that the routines of our lives can be changed at a moment’s notice. It has also shown us many examples of caring, compassion and resilience.

Please accept our best wishes for peace, goodwill and hope for a much better year ahead!

Please note that over the holidays our offices in Toronto and Calgary will be closed:

Friday, December 24th
Monday, December 27th
Tuesday, December 28th
Friday, December 31st, and
Monday, January 3rd

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

Chan-Glasgow Moderates Panel at Ontario Digital Evidence & eDiscovery Institute

Candice Chan-Glasgow, Director, Review Services and Counsel, will moderate a panel at the upcoming Ontario Digital Evidence and eDiscovery Institute webcast in Toronto on November 22nd.

Now in its 11th year, this program is jointly sponsored by the Ontario Bar Association, the Law Society of Ontario and The Advocates’ Society. Bringing together leading experts to get attendees up to speed on the latest developments in eDiscovery and digital evidence this year’s program will focus on a case study involving a litigation matter between an individual litigant and a large corporation.

The stellar faculty will share perspectives of both sides to the litigation and highlight the key issues and challenges that the litigants will face as they navigate the eDiscovery process. … 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