Although most law firms use massive deployments of traditional security solutions to lock down their office systems, networks, and all of their stored content, most of them still struggle with the massive loads of shared electronic documents that flood their corporate network, the Internet, the e-mail system and all of their portable storage devices.

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Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.

Juries don't always believe what people say, but they do tend to believe what is on paper. The difference that thorough e-mail review and analysis can make in the outcome of litigation is dramatic, and attorneys cannot risk overlooking key evidence that can make or break a client's case.

Part One of this article discussed state insolvency statutes and how liquidation remains a state regulator's remedy of last resort. The conclusion discusses the liquidator's broad powers; automatic stay of other proceedings; distribution plans; issues pertaining to claims; distribution and priorities; drop down; set-offs; and claims by third parties.

Salt Lake City's Kirton & McConkie faced a critical communications issue. With 87 attorneys and additional support staff all using e-mail as a primary method to communicate with internal staff, clients, investigators and others essential to our cases, e-mail is the most important record for all types of data. We were using a backup product to perform a full database backup on the weekends, and incremental backups during the week on our Exchange server; however, the tape backup software didn't allow us to easily search and retrieve e-mail messages and attachments. Additionally, the need for large mailboxes (sometimes as big as 2 or 3 gigabytes), as well as increased e-mail activity, had caused our Exchange database to grow to an unmanageable 120 GB. We couldn't reduce e-mail service, as partners and staff relied on e-mail as the primary communications tool to handle cases. But, the risk of losing pertinent information was oppressive, and managing e-mail data and maintaining seamless access to archived information became a mission-critical task for IT services.

In the December 2005 issue of this publication, this author reviewed the Seventh Circuit's decision in <i>United Air Lines, Inc. v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A.</i>, 416 F.3d 609 (7th Cir. 2005) (<i>'United I'</i>). In that decision, the Seventh Circuit was asked to determine whether a transaction involving land at the San Francisco airport that was denominated as a lease in the agreement would be treated as a lease for bankruptcy purposes. The Seventh Circuit held that it would look at the substance of the transaction and beyond the form and labels imposed by the parties' documentation.

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I am frequently asked about best practices in collecting electronically stored information (ESI) and how data collections should, or should not, be performed. While collections will certainly vary from matter to matter based on the objectives at hand, there are some general best practices that should be followed in all matters, particularly when it comes to touching the data.

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It is not unusual for a finance lessor to discover that its Lessee intends to enter into a contract with a third party whereby the Lessee delivers possession of the leased equipment to that third party. Although many finance lessors may be aware of the practical risks associated with having its leased property/collateral in the hands of a third party, many are unaware of the increased legal risks that result from such a situation. This article addresses some of the key issues. For the sake of clarity, the third party receiving possession and control of the leased equipment will be referred to as a 'Sublessee,' and the agreement between the Lessee and the Sublessee will be referred to as a 'Sublease.' It should be noted that a contract of service pursuant to which the Sublessee receives possession also constitutes a 'Sublease' for purposes of this article.