Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

A Primer on Foreign Language e-Discovery

By Ari Kaplan
December 21, 2007

While e-discovery may be Greek to many, it is those documents written in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian that cause much of the trouble for companies ' bricks-and-mortar and 'e' alike ' when documents must be collected, reviewed, redacted and presented.

These 'multi-byte' languages have exponentially more characters than the 20-some letters and punctuation marks that such Indo-European languages like English, Spanish, French and German need. In fact, more than 47,000 characters are listed in the Chinese Kangxi dictionary (though 'only' 3,000 – 4,000 are reportedly necessary for full literacy).

The impact on e-discovery is significant, considering the increased sophistication necessary for case evaluation. At the most basic level, computers 'think' in ones and zeros, with a one or zero being a 'bit.' Eight make a byte. There are 256 combinations of numbers you can create using a byte (two bits to the eighth power).

Read These Next
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws Image

This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.

The Article 8 Opt In Image

The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.

Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin Image

With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.

Legal Possession: What Does It Mean? Image

Possession of real property is a matter of physical fact. Having the right or legal entitlement to possession is not "possession," possession is "the fact of having or holding property in one's power." That power means having physical dominion and control over the property.

The Anti-Assignment Override Provisions Image

UCC Sections 9406(d) and 9408(a) are one of the most powerful, yet least understood, sections of the Uniform Commercial Code. On their face, they appear to override anti-assignment provisions in agreements that would limit the grant of a security interest. But do these sections really work?