How To Be Sure There Is No Failure to Communicate Preservation!

Monitoring Preservation of E-Evidence: Why It's Important - eDiscovery & Legal Tech - In House Jason Beahm at FindLaw for Legal Professionals wrote on September 21, 2010 "A hot area in the in house world right now: preservation of electronic evidence or "e-evidence." These days, more and more evidence exists only electronically. However, the fact that a piece of evidence is never printed on a piece of paper does not absolve in house counsel of the obligation to safeguard it."

To avoid clear misconduct it is imperative that lawyers (and thus their paralegals) take steps to assure clients do not unknowingly destroy e-evidence (electronic evidence). As a paralegal you should assure you have executed file copies of "client preservation of evidence letters" as prepared by the attorney. Copies should be sent to clients, opposing counsel and third parties. The "preservation of evidence letter" should make crystal clear as to what constitutes spoilation and what the possible consequences may be. For example, the following is sample language:

"This lawsuit requires preservation of all information from ABC Company's computer systems, and removable electronic media. This includes, but is not limited to, email and other electronic communication, word processing documents, spreadsheets, databases, calendars, telephone logs, contact manager information, Internet usage files, and network access information. Employees must take every reasonable step to preserve this information until further notice. Failure to do so could result in extreme penalties against ABC Company."

Now that you have your client covered, what about the opposing party "preservation of evidence" letter? Check in later for my next post and I'll address that question!

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