A deposition in the law of the United States, or examination for discovery in the law of Canada, involves the taking of sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that may be reduced to a written transcript for later use in court or for discovery purposes. Depositions are commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada. They are almost always conducted outside court by the lawyers themselves, with no judge present to supervise the examination.
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from other parties by means of methods of discovery such as interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions and depositions. Discovery can be obtained from nonparties using subpoenas. When a discovery request is objected to, the requesting party may seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion to compel discovery. Conversely, a party or nonparty resisting discovery can seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion for a protective order.
The Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) is a set of codes designed to standardize categorization and facilitate the analysis of legal work and expenses. UTBMS was produced through a collaborative effort among the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, the American Corporate Counsel Association, and a group of major corporate clients and law firms coordinated and supported by Price Waterhouse LLP. UTBMS codes are now maintained and developed by the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) Oversight Committee.
Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the management of information in an organization throughout its life cycle, from the time of creation or receipt to its eventual disposition. This includes identifying, classifying, storing, securing, retrieving, tracking and destroying or permanently preserving records. The ISO 15489-1: 2001 standard defines records management as "[the] field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records".
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern civil procedure in United States district courts. They are the companion to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rules promulgated by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act become part of the FRCP unless, within seven months, the United States Congress acts to veto them. The Court's modifications to the rules are usually based upon recommendations from the Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal judiciary's internal policy-making body.
An electronic lab notebook is a computer program designed to replace paper laboratory notebooks. Lab notebooks in general are used by scientists, engineers, and technicians to document research, experiments, and procedures performed in a laboratory. A lab notebook is often maintained to be a legal document and may be used in a court of law as evidence. Similar to an inventor's notebook, the lab notebook is also often referred to in patent prosecution and intellectual property litigation.
Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval, and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, analog or digital. They also include one methods for importing content to manage new items, and several presentation methods to make items available for use. Although ECM content may be protected by digital rights management (DRM), it is not required. ECM is distinguished from general content management by its cognizance of the processes and procedures of the enterprise for which it is created.
Information lifecycle management (ILM) refers to strategies for administering storage systems on computing devices.
Electronic discovery refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format. Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party.
Email archiving is the act of preserving and making searchable all email to/from an individual. Email archiving solutions capture email content either directly from the email application itself or during transport. The messages are typically then stored on magnetic disk storage and indexed to simplify future searches. In addition to simply accumulating email messages, these applications index and provide quick, searchable access to archived messages independent of the users of the system using a couple of different technical methods of implementation. The reasons a company may opt to implement an email archiving solution include protection of mission critical data, to meet retention and supervision requirements of applicable regulations, and for e-discovery purposes. It is predicted that the email archiving market will grow from nearly $2.1 billion in 2009 to over $5.1 billion in 2013.
A request for production is a legal request for documents, electronically stored information, or other tangible items made in the course of litigation. In civil procedure, during the discovery phase of litigation, a party to a lawsuit may request that another party provide any documents that it has that pertain to the subject matter of the lawsuit. For example, a party in a court case may obtain copies of email messages sent by employees of the opposing party.
The terms legal case management (LCM), legal management system (LMS), matter management or legal project management refer to a subset of law practice management and cover a range of approaches and technologies used by law firms and courts to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case or matter more effectively. Generally, the terms refer to the sophisticated information management and workflow practices that are tailored to meet the legal field's specific needs and requirements.
Electronically stored information (ESI), for the purpose of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) is information created, manipulated, communicated, stored, and best utilized in digital form, requiring the use of computer hardware and software.
Zubulake v. UBS Warburg is a case heard between 2003 and 2005 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Shira Scheindlin, presiding over the case, issued a series of groundbreaking opinions in the field of electronic discovery. Plaintiff Laura Zubulake filed suit against her former employer UBS, alleging sex discrimination, failure to promote, and retaliation. Judge Shira Scheindlin's rulings comprise some of the most often cited in the area of electronic discovery, and were made prior to the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The relevant opinions in the field are known as Zubulake I, Zubulake III, Zubulake IV, and Zubulake V. In 2012, the plaintiff published a book about her e-discovery experiences titled Zubulake's e-Discovery: The Untold Story of my Quest for Justice.
Zubulake v. UBS Warburg is a landmark decision in the area of electronic discovery and the burden of costs for such discovery. It was released on May 13, 2003 and was written by Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. It is the first in a series of Zubulake judgements relating to discovery issues, and is also referred to as "Zubulake I". See section "Other Proceedings" for information on other Zubulake decisions.
Tampering with evidence, or evidence tampering, is an act in which a person alters, conceals, falsifies, or destroys evidence with the intent to interfere with an investigation (usually) by a law-enforcement, governmental, or regulatory authority. It is a criminal offense in many jurisdictions.
Einstein v 357 LLC is a United States New York Supreme Court landmark decision which addresses a party's discovery obligations and the safeguarding of evidence. In particular, this decision addresses the issue of the intentional destruction of digital evidence when litigation has commenced or is reasonably anticipated. In short, this decision eradicates the excuse of ignorance in terms of how electronically stored information is saved, deleted, and retrieved.
Information Discovery is a term used in the legal and corporate industry which refers to the steps involved in distilling a corporation's data corpus down to the most pertinent evidence pertaining to a court-related matter or compliance directive. The major information discovery steps include: managing the entire data collection in a manner to identify all pertinent evidence associated with the matter, targeting that information for collection, processing and identification (culling) of relevant data, and processing for document hosting and legal document/information review.
Gates Rubber Company v. Bando Chemical Industries, Ltd., et al. is a decision by the U.S. district court for the District of Colorado from May 1, 1996. It is considered a landmark decision in terms of expert witness court testimony in questions of electronic evidence and digital forensics.
The Sedona Canada Principles are a set of authoritative guidelines published by The Sedona Conference to aid members of the Canadian legal community involved in the identification, collection, preservation, review and production of electronically stored information (ESI). The principles were drafted by a small group of lawyers, judges and technologists called the Sedona Working Group 7 or Sedona Canada. Sedona Canada is an offshoot of The Sedona Conference which is an American “non-profit…research and educational institute dedicated to the advanced study of law and policy in the areas of antitrust law, complex litigation, and intellectual property rights.”
