Mid-Year Trends in eDiscovery

Legal firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher surveyed 103 cases in the first six months of 2010, identified and analyzed eDiscovery trends, and published their findings in their 2010 Mid-Year Electronic Discovery and Information Law Update.

Their key findings include:

• Continuing a trend that started last year, the dominant themes in eDiscovery circles were that inseperable pair of sanctions and cooperation.

• The courts continued their steady issuance of motions to compel.

• Privilege disputes also continued to take up a lot of air (and court) time.

• There were relatively fewer decisions dealing with data preservation, form of production, and the ability to access data (or the inability).

• Courts spent more time focusing on details that relate to more mature, developed eDiscovery processes, such as iterative search terms, the application of protective orders, and the application of Federal Rule of Evidence 502, introduced in 2008 to limit attorney-client privilege and work product waivers.

• Courts spent more time analyzing the overlap and inter-relationship between eDiscovery and the Fourth Amendment.

• Courts pondered (and pondered) the, well, ponderous issue of an individual’s “reasonable expectations of privacy” in different eDiscovery types and forms.

• Courts waded – or were pulled – headfirst into the social media world, because of the massive number of eDiscovery cases dealing with social media content, and with the failure of corporations and employees to respond to disclosure requests quickly and completely. Read more about this emerging issue here.

To read Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s update, click here.