In the Legal's E-Discovery supplement, read about possession, custody or control; preserving wearable data and how when it come to ethics and e-discovery, attorneys must stay current.

One of our observations after two decades of e-discovery practice is this: the move from a paper to electronic world hasn't changed the fundamentals of discovery very much.

Attorneys need to be aware of technological advances in terms of preservation of evidence and new avenues for seeking relevant evidence. Spoliation sanctions, including adverse jury instructions, have been issued for the failure to preserve text messages.

Discovery of personal data held in the European Union (EU) has been an issue that has bedeviled U.S. litigants for some time. On the one hand, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that discovery of foreign documents is not barred by foreign privacy law.

Most lawyers know to advise their clients to preserve evidence in their “care, custody or control” relevant to pending or threatened litigation. But exactly how far does “control” go? Can a party be sanctioned for spoliation for failing to issue a legal hold notice to a third party who has no obligation to follow your legal hold instructions?

Attorneys are bound by developing ethical rules and duties relating to e-discovery. These rules and duties deserve emphasis because courts, and clients, are increasingly concerned about the manner in which attorneys conduct discovery and, particularly, e-discovery.

Data is duplicative by nature, but the way your operation stores and manages data is likely exposing it to unnecessary and costly redundancy. Most organizations handling e-discovery today could very well have a cumulative data set that is anywhere from five to 10 times bigger than necessary.