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Seamlessly Mastering Large-Scale Discovery Requests
A law firm representing a Fortune 100 corporation had recently struck a deal to acquire one of its major industry competitors. Upon receiving the notice of the merger under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a “Second Request,” demanding corporate data from more than 11 geographic locations, including several sites in Europe, South America and Asia. The requested data, derived from a total of 315 employees in the acquiring corporation, had been generated on a wide array of operating systems, e-mail packages and software applications. In addition, the firm had over 100 boxes of paper documents that needed to be incorporated into the production set. The firm anticipated a final document production totaling more than 7 million pages. To add to the complexity of the request, the whole collection, review and production could take only 10 to 12 weeks.
Most attorneys find discovery projects of this volume and magnitude a formidable task ' particularly when the stakes are high and production deadlines are tight. After all, many lawyers may not possess the technical prowess to understand the process and may feel uncertain about the best method for collecting, reviewing and producing volumes of electronic data. Adding to this daunting task is the requirement of addressing issues such as the handling of privileged information, e-mail and attachment production, metadata issues, and a host of other concerns. Whether practicing in a corporate environment or running a litigation practice, modern lawyers must prepare to handle discovery projects of all scopes and sizes. Failing to understand the special technical considerations involved with a large electronic-discovery project could leave a law firm and its client in hot water. After all, case law and newspaper headlines prove that courts and regulatory agencies expect practitioners and corporations to become technologically savvy or face sanctions in the form of hefty monetary fines or awards, adverse-inference instructions or even default judgments.
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTs
A federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?
Blockchain Domains: New Developments for Brand Owners
Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.
Supreme Court Rules Rejection of Trademark License Does Not Rescind Rights of Licensee
Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC The question is whether a debtor's rejection of its agreement granting a license "terminates rights of the licensee that would survive the licensor's breach under applicable nonbankruptcy law."