How One Law Firm Used eDiscovery Assistant to a Win a $400,000 Recovery

Use Issue tags and search filters in eDiscovery Assistant’s curated case law database to find and review relevant decisions including:

• Use Failure to Preserve issue in jurisdictions of California and 9th Circuit to identify when the duty to preserve attaches under California law; select analogous decisions and those to be distinguished and draft section of brief on duty to preserve;
• Use Failure to Produce issue and “ransomware” as search term with no jurisdiction limiter to identify decisions from across the country in which there was a loss of data due to a ransomware attack and the impact on a party’s preservation and production obligations
  • Review the Map of search results; note the total number of decisions on the issue across the country for use in brief
    Drill down into the decisions in the 9th Circuit for review
  • Go back to initial search across U.S. when facts of 9th Circuit decisions are not analogous to current case
  • Identify decision in other jurisdictions supporting argument that employer’s failure to produce when duty to preserve arose in advance of ransomware attack is sanctionable
• Use “Sanctions AND Failure to Preserve” as Issue search with “wrongful termination” as search term to identify decisions listing sanctions available from across U.S.
• View 50+ results on Map and identify that cases exist in both 9th Circuit and California state court
• • Add jurisdiction filters for California state courts and 9th Circuit to search
  • Review 16 decisions and identify witness and issue preclusion as potential sanctions where there is no intentional conduct sufficient for terminating sanctions
  • Narrow Issue search to add Exclusion of Witness or Exclusion of Evidence as potential sanctions (see Image 1 below)
  • Review 2 results and draft arguments based on case law for use on motion
• Review outline of Motion for Sanctions in Checklists and Forms section of eDiscovery Assistant to create case specific outline of issues, facts and relevant law for brief and affidavit needed on motion.