1/1/2020: Conceptually Rich Documents for Conceptual Indices in Relativity Analytics
When setting up a training set to be used for the creation of a conceptual index in Relativity, be sure to exclude computer generated files.   Include conceptually rich documents in the set.  Excel spreadsheets will rarely be examples of conceptually rich documents.  Databases should also be avoided.

1/2/2020: Special Master: Confidentiality Order Balances EU GDPR
“Special Master believes the Discovery Confidentiality Order provision allowing a producing party to designate and protect as ‘Highly Confidential’ information that the producing party claims to be Foreign Private Data—such as employee names, sufficiently balances the EU’s interest in protecting its citizens private data and the U.S. legal system’s interest in preserving and maintaining the integrity of the broad discovery provisions set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” In re Mercedes-Benz Emissions Litig., No. 2:16-cv-881 (SDW) (JAD), 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223132, at *15 (D.N.J. Nov. 4, 2019)

1/3/2020: Disabling Formula Updates for Broken Links in Excel
If you already have a different Excel file open, with the default ‘Automatic’ setting activated, a setting of a new file to only manually update formulas will be overridden and formulas will automatically update.

1/4/2020: Opened Emails Not Protected by the SCA
“It thus appears that most courts have held (and I agree) that the SCA doesn’t reach and protect undeleted emails that have already been delivered and opened by the intended recipient.”  Sartori v. Schrodt, No. 3:18cv204-RV/HTC, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223533, at *29 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 25, 2019)

1/5/2020: Court Orders Co-owned Businesses Dissolved Because of Dispute of Over Paying for Imaging of Servers
“The bickering over who shall pay the $1,500 cost to image the server evidences the dissention, deadlock and division.  Their inability to cooperate to the detriment of their co-owned companies yields one conclusion: dissolve all of the joint businesses, now.” Besen v. Doshi, Index No. 652691/2018, 2019 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 6835, at *12 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Dec. 27, 2019).

1/6/2020: Sedona Commentary on Non-Party Discovery
A wider range of expenses are permitted for non-party discovery than for regular discovery.   “Courts may allow non-party expenses to include printing costs and technology consulting fees as well as costs associated with collection, database creation, and, under certain circumstances, document review and privilege log preparation.”

1/7/2020: Javascript to remove blank pages from PDFs.
This script will remove any pages which don’t’ contain searchable text.

1/8/2020: Find rows with duplicate data with conditional formatting in Excel
This method uses the CONCATENATE formula.

1/9/2020: VBA code to merge cells with consecutive duplicate entries in Excel
Macro which you can use to merge consecutive cells with duplicate entries in a column in an Excel.

1/10/2020: Find and Replace Multiple Strings in Excel
VBA code will replace strings listed in two columns on Sheet1 on all other worksheets.

1/11/2020: D. Nev. Issues Protective Order for IMEI Data
The Court also agreed to the Plaintiff’s request for a protective order for a spreadsheet with an IMEI analysis of the Defendants’ phone data.   IMEI stands for “International Mobile Equipment Identity”. It is used to identity mobile phones.  The IMEI number identifies the phone, but not the actual subscriber.

1/12/2020: International Mobile Equipment Identity
You can get the unique IMEI id number for your mobile phone by dialing *#060.

1/13/2020: Splitting Delimited Text Inside Cells Onto New Rows
VBA to split text separated by delimiters inside a cell onto new rows, with data to the right copied on the new rows.

1/14/2020: The SHA-1 hash function is more vulnerable than ever before
A paper shows how PGP encryption keys can be created with different IDs but the same SHA-1 hash values.

1/15/2020: The different types of data extraction
In advanced physical extraction forensics tools can be used to recover flash memory.   This involves recovering data from memory chips, which must be removed from a device.

1/16/2020: Medical Social Media
70% of American physicians have a Doximity profile.

1/17/2020: Excel vba code to use a RegEx search to make part of text inside a cell boldfaced
Vba code you can use to run a regular expression search on a column in Excel to boldface some but not all of the text inside a cell.

1/18/2020: S.D. Ind.: Searching Electronic Records Cannot Be Taxed Under 28 U.S.C. § 1920
“Fees for searching electronic records and for research aren’t recoverable under § 1920, but must be sought in a motion for attorneys fees.” In re Method of Processing Etha Related Subsystems ‘858 Patent Litig., No. 1:10-ml-02181-RLM-DML, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8694, at *14 (S.D. Ind. Jan. 15, 2020)

1/19/2020: REPLACE formula
Don’t miss how helpful Excel’s REPLACE formula can be.  You can use it to replace X number of characters starting at a given position in a cell.

1/20/2020: Replace alt codes in MS Word
You can find and replace any character in a Word document by preceding its alt code with a ^

1/21/2020: CVE-2020-0601 Vulnerability Lets Windows Install Malware
Windows uses a document link library, Crypt32.dll, to keep track of trusted certificate authorities.  There’s a flaw in the .dll (which Microsoft recently posted a patch for) which allows it to incorrectly approve malicious software and web sites.  The vulnerability is named CVE-2020-0601.

1/22/2020: CTRL + D without formatting
VBA code that can be used to autofill a selected range of cells with the data in the cell above the range, but without copying the formatting from the source cell, as would be done if the common CTRL + D command were used.

1/23/2020: S.D.N.Y.: CAL Software Name and Workflow Makes Discovery Transparent
“In this case, defendants have represented that they have provided detailed information regarding the collection criteria they used, the name of their continuous active learning (“CAL”) software, their CAL review workflow, and how they intend to validate the review results. That is sufficient information to make the production transparent.”  Kaye v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 18-CV-12137 (JPO) (JLC), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9240, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 21, 2020),

1/24/2020: How ephemeral is Snapchat?
When two users communicate in a one on one chat. their messages will be deleted when the chat ends, but the settings can be changed so these messages are retained for 24 hours.

1/25/2020: In-Place eDiscovery in Microsoft Exchange
A single mailbox can have multiple in-place holds, but no more than 500 search terms can be used.

1/26/2020: Emails Purged From Outlook May Still Exist
After an email in Outlook is purged from the Recovered Items folder, it may not disappear until the Managed Folder Assistant processes the Purges folder – the default work cycle is 1 day.

1/27/2020: Removing Line Breaks in Excel
The CLEAN formula takes out characters that cannot be printed.  It will remove other line breaks that the CHAR(10) and CHAR(13) don’t catch.

1/28/2020: Excel formula to extract formula path
=LEFT(A1,LOOKUP(2^15,FIND(“\”,A1,ROW(INDIRECT(“1:”&LEN(A1))))))

1/29/2020: Model Rule 3.3 and Electronic Discovery
Obligation under Rule 3.3 to show candor to the tribunal may override an attorney’s duty to protect the confidentiality of a client’s data.

1/30/2020: Excel formula to find row number hit appears on
You can use the Excel MATCH formula to find the row number of that a value in a range appears in.

=MATCH(F2,A:A,0)+ROW(A:A)-1

The MATCH formula searches for where the value in cell F2 appears in column A and then the ROW formula returns the row number that value appears on.

1/31/2020: Reformatting text as number quickly
Select the entire column and use the Text to Columns tool on the Data tab.  When the tool opens, rather than selecting one of the delimiter or fixed length settings, simply click ‘Finish’.