With the end of the EU Safe Harbor agreement and recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), e-discovery has been a central topic for attorneys and IT professionals alike this year. Now, in a new report titled “2015 Top E-Discovery Cases,” experts from e-discovery products and services provider Kroll Ontrack provided a summary of 55 state and federal judicial opinions from the past year, all of which relate to the discovery of electronically stored information.

Among the opinions summarized in the report, Kroll Ontrack officials distinguished five themes that were discussed most commonly. Kroll Ontrack director of legal technologies Michele C.S. Lange set time aside to discuss the report's findings with Legaltech News, describing the five major trend areas – production, preservation, costs, procedural issues, and sanctions – as “the nuts and bolts” behind the conduction of e-discovery.

Speaking on why these trends are occurring, Lange said, “Parties are looking for guidance from judges in areas where there is often material disputes. For example, when is the duty to preserve triggered, how much discovery is too burdensome, what areas of costs can be shifted to the opponent, etc. One of the best ways to keep up to date on evolving e-discovery practices is to monitor what judges are saying when confronted with e-discovery issues in cases.”