Electronic Discovery: Law & Practice by Adam I. Cohen and David J. Lender of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP © 2003 Aspen Publishers Chapter 9: "Electronic Discovery Technology" authored by Applied Discovery

"While much has been written on the subject of e-discovery in the form of articles and presentations, and there is now a growing body of judicial decisions and court rules dealing with e-discovery, jurists and practitioners have lacked a comprehensive and well-organized legal treatise covering the area. Electronic Discovery: Law and Practice, by Adam Cohen and David Lender [partners at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges], addresses this gap in salutary fashion. The book is logically organized into topical chapters that rigorously cover the law on all of the main e-discovery issues and a wealth of appendix materials containing practical tools to assist in preparing for and conducting e-discovery. "

"Chapter 9, authored by Virginia Llewellyn, an electronic discovery technology services provider associated with Applied Discovery Inc., provides a remarkably clear look at how electronic discovery technology has developed and is used. This chapter is not a "techie" chapter explaining the finer points of computer forensics tasks such as retrieving deleted emails from hard disks, but rather an overview of how electronic discovery is handled by lawyers in practice. The technology chapter also contains an appendix filled with practical tips on e-discovery nuts and bolts, including chain-of-custody logging for electronic media, creating a data-gathering plan, storing and transporting media safely, and review of 'native' files."

"Fortunately, there is a little light at the end of this dark technological tunnel. It is the publication of an excellent book by Adam I. Cohen and David J. Lender, entitled "Electronic Discovery: Law and Practice." Rather than discuss the unique problems created by the emergence of electronic information in the footnotes of a book about evidence or civil procedure, the authors insist that the courts' struggling with the flow of electronic information is worthy of independent analysis. They therefore provide a treatise that thoughtfully deals with each of the topics that has arisen in the cases and academic literature dealing with electronic information."

"A particularly valuable section of the book, Chapter 9, is written by Virginia Llewellyn, who works for a company that provides electronic discovery services to lawyers. She describes the technology of using the computer to organize discovery in prose that is blessedly free of jargon. She points out that the effective use of the computer to gather and organize information, pursuant to a well thought-out plan, can save counsel great amounts of time and money. Electronic discovery is therefore a blessing, not a curse. Every lawyer and judge ever born has spent a good chunk of his or her life wading through a haystack of paper to find the needle of a relevant document. Ms. Llewellyn's point is that there is every reason to believe that the computer will achieve for these lawyers and judges the same gains in productivity that it has achieved in other parts of the economy by making the search for information better designed and more expeditious. Her well-supported argument should calm those lawyers who, confronted with the an electronic discovery problem, have a look in their eyes that is worthy of a deer looking into headlights."

• How electronic discovery is treated differently by courts
• Parties' and lawyers' duties for the retention of electronic records
• The impact of electronic document retention policies on litigation
• Shifting the costs of electronic discovery to your adversary
• Admitting and precluding electronic evidence
• How electronic communication affects the attorney-client privilege
• Specific rules for discovering government information

• Overview
• Mechanisms for Electronic Discovery
• Spoliation
• Document Retention: Policies and Electronic Information
• Shifting the Costs of Electronic Discovery
• Evidentiary Issues
• Attorney-Client Privilege & Email
• Computerized Litigation Support Systems & The Work Product Doctrine
• Electronic Discovery Technology
• Inspection of Hard Disks in Civil Litigation
• Privacy Concerns
• Government Documents