Electronic Discovery and Evidence

"Read my lips, Dell is in contempt."

"Dell held in contempt in New Orleans camera case. An Orleans Parish judge has held Dell in contempt of court for failing to provide company e-mails relating to an ill-fated deal to provide the city with crime cameras, the New Orleans Times Picayune reports. Dell is one of multiple defendants in a case brought by New Orleans' initial crime camera suppliers, Southern Electronic and Active Solutions, who are claiming that a handful of tech companies and some less-than-scrupulous city officials (including the mayor) conspired to steal their camera technology. Dell had been threatened with contempt in May, when the judge ordered Michael Dell, CEO of the computer giant to testify in person, and balked that the company was dragging its feet when asked to provide internal documents. Dell's attorney had argued that the CEO had not met with Mayor Ray Nagin, and that he had no knowledge of any deal with the city. Documents have since emerged to show that the meeting took place in 2004, and that Dell was briefed on the camera deal, the Picayune reported. The judge got angry when Dell's attorneys produced what she considered an incomplete body of evidence, after having been ordered to search Michael Dell's personal files and those of his deputy, Troy West. Here's the money quote from Judge Rose Ledet, dismissing Dell attorney Phil Wittmann's protestation that searching the files by terms like "cameras" and "public safety" would : "Dell is in the business of computers, Mr. Wittmann. How can they not find the documents, how can they not search the e-mails? You're making a mockery of the system here. Read my lips, Dell is in contempt.""

E-mails Can Jeopardize Your Job

E-mails Can Jeopardize Your Job.  " If ever there was a reminder to be cautious with e-mails, it came this week as romantic missives from South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to his Argentine lover surfaced in the national press.  Sanford, a conservative Republican who disappeared for several days to rendezvous with his lover in Argentina, returned to the United States on Wednesday to find out his tryst had been exposed in the media, along with months' worth of steamy electronic exchanges between the couple. . . . "

Electronic Discovery Vendors and Service Providers

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Electronic Discovery State Legal Cases and Procedural Rules

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Back Off Metadata Ethics Complaint, Judge Tells Lawyer Suing Sexploits Blogger.

Back Off Metadata Ethics Complaint, Judge Tells Lawyer Suing Sexploits Blogger.  "A lawyer who claims he was the paramour identified as “RS” on a blog of sexual exploits has been warned by a judge to back off on an ethics allegation against the blogger’s bankruptcy counsel.  U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Margaret Cangilos-Ruiz of the Northern District of New York said lawyer Robert Steinbuch claimed the bankruptcy counsel was improperly accessing metadata, but in reality the supposed hidden data was a document name visible to anyone when the court generated a notice of electronic filing, the New York Law Journal reports.  The judge also labeled Steinbuch’s suggestion that a notice of deposition had interfered with a religious holiday as “blatantly misleading and baseless,” since the notice was received before the holiday began, and the deposition was scheduled to take place after the holiday had ended, according to her June 5 opinion (PDF posted by the New York Law Journal) in the case. . . "