Caught on Tape: The Next Frontier In Electronic Discovery
April 29, 2004
Voice-mail has traditionally been the most personalized and candid form of communication in business. Even with the proliferation of e-mail and other electronic documents, voice mail continues to have a greater impact on juries and judges. <br>While voice mail has always been subject to discovery and investigation, the process for electronically saving voice mail and filtering through the saved messages has been spotty and very time consuming. All of this is about to change.
Learn New Tricks: Autocoding Technology is Here and Now
April 29, 2004
If a technical application existed that coded litigation documents at a fraction of the time and cost, would you use it? As new technologies emerge, Winston & Strawn, a 150 year-old firm with nearly 900 attorneys and multiple offices worldwide, asks this question time and again. As litigation support project manager at the Washington, DC office, my latest conclusion is that autocoding is an important piece of litigation technology and the time has come.
Litigation Cost Control in the Digital Age
April 29, 2004
With new judicial opinions being issued every month on the topic, the allocation of e-discovery costs is probably one of the fastest-growing areas in e-discovery jurisprudence. <br>Given that the price tag associated with e-discovery can be staggering, some of the most intense arguments in a lawsuit can ensue over which party will foot the bill to collect, restore, process and produce the enormous volumes of electronic evidence that is discoverable in many of today's legal proceedings.
Selecting an e-Discovery Provider That Meets Your Needs
April 29, 2004
The potential size of today's data sets, the ease with which electronic files can be altered and the complexity of these projects in general makes selecting the right e-discovery provider a high-stakes game.
The Litigation Balancing Act
April 29, 2004
The principles of "you get what you measure" and "you cannot manage what you cannot measure" seem self-evident. And, to be sure, in most large commercial and public-sector entities, integrated performance-management systems have evolved into foundational elements that support how these organizations are run. <br>But it seems odd that one of the highest-risk and highest-exposure ' and politically and economically sensitive ' business processes has escaped proper measurement: litigation response.
Case Briefing
April 27, 2004
The latest rulings of importance to you and your practice.
California's Prop 65 Trumped By FDA, But On Narrow Grounds
April 27, 2004
The truth is apparently no defense for the state when it comes to issuing warning labels for nicotine gums and patches. Recently, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in <i>Dowhal v. SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare</i>, 04 C.D.O.S. 3259 that federal regulations trump state statutes when it comes to putting pregnant women on alert about the possible dangers of Nicorette' and other nicotine-replacement therapies -- even if the state warnings are legitimate. "Whether a label is potentially misleading or incomprehensible is essentially a judgment of how the consumer will respond to the language of the label," Justice Joyce Kennard wrote. "A truthful warning of an uncertain or remote danger may mislead the consumer into misjudging the dangers stemming from the use of the product, and consequently making a medically unwise decision."
Pharmaceutical Benefits Managers Get Reprieve in Maine
April 27, 2004
In a decision issued March 9 in the case of <i>Pharmaceutical Care Management Ass'n v. Rowe</i>, No. 03-153-B-W, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3758 (D. Maine 3/9/04), U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. delayed enforcement of a novel Maine law whose intent is to make the business practices of companies that negotiate drug prices on behalf of health plans more transparent. The preliminary injunction has at least temporarily prevented the state of Maine from implementing Maine's 2003 "Act to Protect Against Unfair Prescription Drug Practices (M.R.S.A. ' 2699), known as UPDPA, against pharmaceutical benefits managers (PBMs).
