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The Rise of ESI – Meta Data and its Myths

The Rise of ESI – Meta Data and its Myths. Lisa E. Rosen President, Rosen Technology Resources, Inc. March 7, 2008. About Me. A former litigation paralegal and experienced legal software consultant.

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The Rise of ESI – Meta Data and its Myths

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  1. The Rise of ESI – Meta Data and its Myths Lisa E. Rosen President, Rosen Technology Resources, Inc. March 7, 2008

  2. About Me • A former litigation paralegal and experienced legal software consultant. • Worked in the litigation support industry for several years and consulted/trained on the nation’s most widely utilized litigation support applications. • Double Recipient of LexisNexis Concordance Awards for Outstanding Client Support and Product Development for the software applications Concordance and Opticon. • Winner of the 2005 and 2006 LTN Technology Award in the category of Litigation Support Service/Consultant by Law Technology News ®. • Provided consulting and training at several of AMLAW’s top 100 firms throughout the country, as well as for in-house legal groups for many Fortune 500 Companies. • An adjunct professor in the Roosevelt University Paralegal Program, teaching a course she developed in Legal Technology.

  3. The Rise of ESI • ESI (Electronically Stored Information) has changed the way we practice law today. • ESI includes “data compilations stored in any medium that can be translated into a reasonably useable form” • Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 34(a) • Today, by some estimates, more than 90% of all information is created in electronic format. - The Sedona Principles for Electronic Document Production, 2004

  4. Definition of Meta Data Metadata is information about the document or file that is recorded by the computer to assist the computer and often the user in storing and retrieving the document or file at a later date.

  5. Meta Data Captured During the Electronic Discovery Process Below are the meta data fields captured from raw files: RecNo OutputFile Status Title ErrorMsg Subject DocID Author Source Keywords Filename Comments DocExt DateCreated Pages LastMod

  6. Meta Data Captured During the Electronic Discovery Process Below are the meta data fields captured from email files (including .pst and .nsf files): RecNo To Pages Status CC NativeFile ErrorMsg BCC OutputFile DocID Attach Title Folder DateSent Subject ItemNo TimeSent Author AttachNo DateRcvd Keywords IntMsgID TimeRcvd Comments Email_Subject Filename DateCreated From Docext LastMod

  7. Is Meta Data Complete? • The metadata extracted reflects the “profile” of a document, not the bibliographic content contained within the document.  Therefore, the searching of metadata is often incomplete. • Some litigation support software will extract the bibliographic information from emails, but cannot extract the bibliographic information from the attachments.

  8. Is Meta Data Accurate? There is real danger that information recorded by the computer may be inaccurate. For example, when a new employee uses a word processing program to create a memorandum by using a memorandum template created by a former employee, the metadata for the new memorandum may incorrectly identify the former employee as the author.

  9. What Does Your Vendor Know (and not know) about Meta Data? • Can meta data be changed during the electronic discovery process? • If paper is not the same as email, what are the benefits to printing native files? • Are there benefits to converting native files to tiff format for production purposes? • When searching email stores based on names, dates, etc, is everything being searched?

  10. Don’t Forget the Meta Data "[b]ecause of their ubiquitous nature, documents stored in electronic form... should be specifically targeted by counsel in developing their discovery plans. Failing to do so may not only prejudice their case, but may also constitute malpractice." Michael R. Overly: California Continuing Education of the Bar (1998 3d Ed), Civil Discovery Practice 3rd Ed., Vol.2, §8.24, p. 711.

  11. Should You Print Your Emails? Printouts are not exact duplicates of emails Clearly, by looking at the printed email, you can see that the aforementioned fields are not all printed along with the message. The first absolute truth of email discovery is that a printout of an email is not an exact duplicate of the original electronic file. See Armstrong, et al. v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. 1993). “the mere existence of the paper print-outs does not affect the record status of the electronic materials unless the paper versions include all significant material contained in the electronic records. Otherwise, the two documents cannot accurately be termed “copies”--identical twins--but are, at most, “kissing cousins.” • Does your Request for Production ask for electronic originals? If so, and opposing counsel produces paper printouts, then you are not getting what you have asked for.

  12. Preserving Meta Data Understanding when meta data needs to be specifically preserved and produced represents one of the biggest challenges in electronic document production.

  13. Questions? Thank you for your time. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments. Have a great day! Lisa Rosen President Rosen Technology Resources, Inc. lisa.rosen@rosentech.net Phone: 312.251.4440 www.rosentech.net

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