The E-Discovery Practice Group — which traces its origins to the firm’s work on the Exxon-Mobil merger about 15 years ago — stands alone in its cutting-edge approach to two pillars of e-discovery.
Complex Litigations and Investigations
The Group routinely handles the e-discovery component of highly complex matters for Fortune 500 clients. It approaches e-discovery as a tool to use offensively as well as a means to manage defensive efforts cost-effectively. By targeting key e-discovery issues, the Group puts firm clients in the best position to win — whether at trial, on summary judgment, or through negotiated settlement — regardless of the substantive realm of law or the industry involved.
Our representative matters for such work includes numerous high-stakes litigations and investigations that the firm has handled for national and international corporations in scores of industries. To be sure, the Group customizes its approach to e-discovery to the circumstances unique to each client and each matter. That said, a few common denominators across such matters are that the Group:
- strategically plans from the outset how best to marshal e-discovery as an offensive weapon;
- seeks to minimize costs in a way that does not jeopardize case strategy;
- leverages its preferred relationships with industry leading third-party e-discovery vendors;
- uses its in-house litigation support services to deliver state of the art technical processes; and
- manages all phases (i.e., identification, collection, review, and production) sensibly.
Advisory Work
The Group has a thriving stand-alone advisory practice. This has arisen because it no longer makes sense for many entities to approach e-discovery issues on an ad hoc basis. An integrated and proactive approach to e-discovery has become a strategic and economic necessity. As part of this practice, the Group publishes an annual 150-page E-Discovery Desk Book for its clients, and hosts a monthly webinar series for clients that focuses on thorny e-discovery issues. And, members of the Group regularly speak worldwide on such legal and technical issues as predictive coding, cloud computing, social media, web 2.0, electronic backup tapes, electronic systems and servers, e-mail rules and procedures, instant messaging, e-contacts, and data security — as well as more traditional subjects like document retention, jurisdiction, stipulations, sanctions, and risk and cost management.
A few representative matters from this year include:
- drafting enterprise-wide e-document and data retention policies and procedures for The New York Stock Exchange;
- advising entities — such as Merck and The National Football League — on the management and disposition of thousands of electronic backup tapes and legacy computer systems;
- advising eBay on international and cross-border e-discovery and privacy issues; and
- assisting numerous entities in a wide range of industries — e.g., AstraZeneca, Barrick Gold Corporation, Chiquita, Johnson & Johnson, Multimedia Games, and The Washington Post — on the full spectrum of legal and technical e-discovery subjects.
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