Leonard Deutchman

May 22, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

In United States v. Nosal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, en banc, held that the prohibition against "exceed[ing] authorized access" to a computer under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. §1030.

By Leonard Deutchman

8 minute read

October 12, 2009 | The Legal Intelligencer

In two recent opinions, p

By Leonard Deutchman

3 minute read

July 02, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

Most people today are familiar with social media and millions regularly use it. As usage has grown vertiginously in the last few years, issues regarding social media and e-discovery have, naturally, arisen.

By Leonard Deutchman

8 minute read

September 04, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

The recent opinion from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Vaughn v. LA Fitness, Civ. Nos. 10-2326, 11-2644, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115272 (E.D.PA. Aug. 16, 2012), provides a thoughtful review of factors a court should consider when moved to abandon the "American rule" under which each party bears its own litigation costs and shift costs from the producing to the requesting party, as well as a well-considered application of those factors to the instant matter. Given the large cost of e-discovery in many matters, review of the opinion can be of great service to the practitioner.

By Leonard Deutchman

13 minute read

October 30, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

In Eagle v. Edcomm, U.S. District Senior Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted defendant Edcomm's motion for summary judgment regarding all federal claims brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

By Leonard Deutchman

11 minute read

December 11, 2006 | The Legal Intelligencer

In the last two months' articles we discussed how recent case law and the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require a party to assemble a team to preserve potentially discoverable electronically stored information (ESI) within an electronic

By Leonard Deutchman

6 minute read

October 11, 2011 | The Legal Intelligencer

I was a prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for 20 years and, for most of them, my cases dealt with high-tech evidence. Such evidence came from wiretaps or pen registers or, later, from personal computers and the Internet.

By Leonard Deutchman

12 minute read

November 09, 2009 | The Legal Intelligencer

As a digital forensics and e-discovery vendor helping clients to seek and produce electronically stored information, it has been my experience that lawyers who represent clients that need to produce e-discovery tend to be more knowledgeable about it than do lawyers whose clients typically request it.

By Leonard Deutchman

9 minute read

July 17, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

America leads the world in information, and wealth in America is increasingly possessed by an emerging "information class." This means that information workers who leave one company to join or start another can potentially present a threat to their former company by violating contractual covenants, civil statutes and even criminal laws by copying, deleting and/or destroying Company A's valuable confidential information (CI). Since CI is usually sent from, received by and stored in computers, forensic examination of the digital devices used by the departing employee plays a central role in determining whether misconduct has occurred and proving it in court. In this month's column, we will discuss the typical "triage" a departing employee's work computer and other devices will undergo as part of the effort to assess whether that employee has improperly copied, deleted or destroyed CI.

By Leonard Deutchman

13 minute read

March 28, 2013 | New Jersey Law Journal

The Judicial Conference of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Civil Rules proposed that Rule 37(e) be gutted and replaced. The proposed amendment (scheduled to take effect in June) would make it far more difficult for parties requesting electronically stored information to obtain sanctions for their adversaries' failure to preserve such discoverable information.

By Leonard Deutchman

15 minute read