Every week, the Array team reviews the latest news and analysis about the evolving field of eDiscovery to bring you the topics and trends you need to know. This week’s post covers the week of May 6-12. Here’s what’s happening.
Survey says legal departments can’t deal with rising data
A recent survey released by Pagefreezer shows in dramatic figures how corporate legal departments are struggling to deal with rising company data and related case matters.
More than two-thirds of corporate legal departments said they’re handling more matters than two years ago – 50% say matters have “somewhat” increased and 18% say they’ve gone up “significantly.” Because of these increased caseloads, half of legal departments that responded to the survey say their responsiveness to ESI production requests has slowed. Even worse:
- 42% say they can’t produce ESI on time
- 28% have been fined because of delayed responses
- 28% can’t produce ESI at all
As to reasons why legal departments are struggling to keep up with ESI requests, 52% of respondents say inadequate staffing is an issue – not enough people to keep up with the growing needs and lack of subject-matter experts in gathering and producing data. In addition to staffing cuts, budgets are also an issue: Two-thirds of corporate counsel planned to bring work in-house this year to reduce costs.
As in-house teams face a two-front battle against shrinking budgets and more gigabytes of data to manage, alternative legal service providers like Array can help. Experienced vendors will have an honest and transparent discussion about pricing, listen to your needs, and use their experience to create an efficient eDiscovery workflow or suggest an alternative approach to meet your needs and deliver the greatest value. The right vendor will also have the flexibility and willingness to customize their platforms and workflows to meet your case needs, and will communicate with you regarding your project’s progress, ensuring that your budget stays on track. Lastly, technology partners can augment the in-house teams by adding outsourced personnel and experts that can seamlessly integrate with the current legal department staff. This allows the corporation to bring in additional experts, when necessary, without the need to add staff to their payroll.
Proportionality ruling for metadata log
Sidley, in its recent Notable Cases and Events in E-Discovery blog, covered a ruling granting a motion to compel production of a metadata log, finding that it was proportional to the needs of the case. Ni v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A, is a collective wage and hour action under the Fair Labor Standards Act in which the plaintiff alleged bankers worked off-the-clock through lunch and after hours periods but were not paid for that time.
The plaintiff sought a metadata log for email, text and direct message activity for a sample of the putative class – 93 employees across 53 bank branches. The defendant objected, claiming metadata collection is a manual process, seeking to limit production to log only messages sent, arguing that receiving email doesn’t indicate whether work was performed, and proposing a narrower sample – 49 bankers, or 8% of the putative class – that would be less burdensome.
The U.S. District Court magistrate judge found the plaintiff’s requested metadata log was a reasonable sample, noting courts have permitted discovery from 25% or more of a class, and disagreed with the defendant’s argument that only sent messages should be logged.
Other recent eDiscovery news and headlines:
