Overview
Today’s commercial litigation is characterized by the need to both discover and produce large volumes of potentially relevant evidence that has been created and/or archived by electronic means. Electronically stored information is generated by virtually every person or business entity and is often the focus of both our efforts to develop evidence offensively to support our clients’ claims and to defend against the claims of others adverse to our clients. As the volume of electronic information expands exponentially, managing e-discovery in commercial controversies/disputes has become increasingly challenging and costly. Our attorneys are well equipped to meet the growing challenge of managing electronic data discovery and consulting with our clients to mitigate the expense and risk associated with preserving, discovering and properly producing electronic data that is vital to cost effective outcomes in commercial disputes.
Our commercial litigation attorneys and paralegal professionals have all had the benefit of technical training in various aspects of e-discovery provided by both in house experts as well as outside vendors with expertise in forensic data discovery, production and archiving. The firm supplies litigation support in house and attorneys/paralegals have access to the most current software applications for the retrieval, organization; production and archiving of the volumes of electronically stored data that are often produced in today’s commercial disputes.
We also supply consulting services to our clients and to their in house legal staff involved in addressing threatened or actual litigation. We do this in an effort to help them mitigate the risk of improper document retention practices or procedures and possible spoliation of evidence. Outside of the litigation environment, we consult with clients to help them become aware of best practices and recommended policies and procedures for proper document retention; use of enterprise owned hardware, smart phones and use of social media by enterprise personnel and the like. Many enterprises we represent have questions around the legal ramifications associated with social media sharing and usage, cloud-based storage solutions, legacy information, unmonitored “Big Data”, rogue employees and third parties with access to Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), intellectual property and sensitive and/or proprietary financial information. Proactive management of these issues can reduce both the risks for business entities as well as the burden of addressing document retention and production in the event that a litigated dispute arises where company created or stored data is in play.
