Oh, boy, electronic discovery - businesses be aware

Electronic discovery does not mean using some electric gadget to find something. For lawyers, discovery means finding the evidence from the other side. The federal and state rules have changed to recognize a world now mostly computerized. I am trying to get into this a bit deeper for my business clients and getting them ready for any future litigation.

Educating the clients on this subject, has been a bit difficult. Outside of the media reporting on e-mails in regards to the United States Attorney firings, there really is a lack of understanding with the general public about how much of our lives and business now resides in electrons dancing with one another in computer hard drives. Finding something written for clients instead of lawyers or technicians has not been easy. The clients do understand do not delete anything in any way that looks suspicious, if you delete anything the do it as part of a company policy that is neutral, and have some means of retrieving everything there is on any subject.

Meanwhile, I am educating myself with articles from blogs such as the The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog. That blog has posts such as Emails as "Smoking Gun" Evidence and All You Need to Know About Electronic Discovery. Dennis Kennedy is required reading on this subject. Thanks to The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog I also found myself back to DiscoveryResources.org.

All this and trying to keep with the stuff on my desk, too. Such is the practice of law.