One of the basic challenges to law firms since the advent of the PC has always been how to convert paper documents into a searchable or editable electronic format. I have been using a product for many years that has continued to improve itself with each new version. I am speaking of Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0, which comes in two editions, Corporate and Professional.
The upgrades seen with version 4.5 (or the third prong of the Trident) include the 'loose file' handling capability that many electronic discovery professionals have been requesting.
The recent lawsuits filed by Sullivan & Cromwell and Electronic Evidence Discovery, Inc. against one another brought to the forefront some of the frustrations that law firms and the vendors to which they outsource are currently experiencing. So how do you get legal professionals at law firms, e-discovery and staffing vendors to function harmoniously in order to minimize problems?
Just in case you missed it, here is the most recent addition to the list of famous last words: "Your honor, you just don't understand how things work." According to press reports, that is how Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the Federal District Court in Cleveland, OH, characterized the foreclosing lender's counsel response to the judge's request for proof that the lender, Deutsche Bank, actually owned the 14 unpaid mortgages that the lender was asking the court to foreclose.
Effective electronic discovery review requires careful planning and project team training in order to ensure timelines are met, critical evidence is not missed (or inadvertently produced), and that resulting production sets meet both requesting party and court requirements. Following are three scenarios and approaches that can be applied to ensure success on future e-discovery engagements.
Many law firms have joined the quest to go 'paperless.' This holy grail of efficiency and order in the digital age has been touted for years as being just over the horizon. The answer to the question 'how do we get there?' has been just as elusive. In a world where so many attorneys and support staff still rely on hard copy versions of documents, the only way to quickly go paperless has involved massive amounts of document imaging, even when many of the documents being scanned originated in an electronic format.
Who's Going Where; Who's Doing What.
In a recent decision, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York applied New Jersey law in ruling that a shortfall fee charged by a factoring company was enforceable, pursuant to an alternative fee structure under a certain factoring agreement.
Sure, it happens. People make mistakes. But, when does a mistake made on a financing statement render it 'seriously misleading' under revised Uniform Commercial Code '9-506 and thus ineffective to perfect an asserted security interest? The Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida recently addressed this issue in the case of In re John's Bean Farm of Homestead Inc.
On Oct. 31, 2007, a trial-level court in New York issued a decision finding that an equipment lease 'fail[ed] for lack of consideration' when the bankrupt vendor did not deliver the leased equipment, even though the lessee had signed a lease amendment ... a look at the ruling.
