Is Your e-Discovery Provider Asking The Right Questions?
With so much at stake, there's no likely way to overstress the importance of e-discovery providers seizing initiative to determine client needs by taking on the role of litigator and asking questions. Qualified e-discovery providers are the best experts to help counsel determine a winning course of action for complete and accurate electronic production that meets litigation goals. Indeed, just as a doctor knows the questions to ask a patient to make a proper diagnosis, an e-discovery provider who is doing his or her job knows which questions to ask to ensure that the discovery process involving electronic files is handled properly.
Criminal Law's Slow Evolution On e-Discovery
Take a basic legal concept ' pretrial discovery ' and a basic form of technology ' computer-data storage and retrieval. Mix the two together over the last 40 years and one would assume there would be a mature and well-precedented body of case law on the criminal and civil sides of jurisprudence. But the dramatic disparity in the rate of evolution of law on this topic stretches the limits of credulity. Why the substantial divergence?
Anatomy Of Trial Technology
In June 2004, the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center completed its annual technology survey, published in five parts. The Litigation and Courtroom Technology volume serves as a sobering background for those who crave a total technology trial. Firms are slowly embracing litigation technology, but there is still a long road to follow before the technology is ubiquitous. Courtrooms have yet to provide much technology in the way of hardware or software, citing expenses and implementation as key barriers. Many lawyers are hesitant to spend thousands, much less hundreds of thousands, of dollars on sophisticated hardware and software. So what are the courts and attorneys embracing, and what are they putting off for another day?
ExpertSourcing: An Effective Approach To Technology Problem Solving
Most law firms, regardless of size, have to outsource technology projects to consultants who have capabilities that the firm does not carry in-house. The smaller firms that do not retain a large IT staff must take this approach more often. Fortunately, outsourcing technology support can evolve into a more valuable model for working with outside consultants: "expertSourcing." When a law firm hires a company to assist on a technology project, generally they are bringing in technicians who will execute it within the narrow boundaries of the scope. The consultants may not ask, or even know to ask, crucial questions about how the technology fits into the law firm practice, how it facilitates other firm needs or if a better solution is available.
Client Profiles Version 7.0: Case Management Solution
Our firm wanted a program that would not only organize our case files electronically, but improve workflow and allow for easy access from a desktop as well as remotely. Because of our team approach to handling cases, we also needed a product that would allow each of us to see what tasks or issues another person was handling, without having to inquire as to the status or physically look at the file.
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The latest cases of importance to you and your practice.
MERS and the Recording Act
In <i>Merscorp. v. Romaine</i> (<i>see</i> page 7, <i>infra</i>), Suffolk County Supreme Court was faced with a clash between the traditionally local real property recording system and the increasingly national secondary mortgage market. The County Clerk's office had refused to accept for recording instruments filed in the name of MERS (Mortgage Electronic Recording Systems, Inc.), prompting a proceeding by MERS and the operating company that owns the MERS system for a writ of mandamus compelling the County Clerk to record and index MERS instruments. The case resulted in a split decision: the County Clerk is required to record MERS mortgages, but not assignments or certificates of discharge. The court's opinion, however, reveals some misunderstanding both of the MERS system and of the recording act.
