More on Employee Expectation of Electronic Privacy

Adam Losey expands the exploration of employee expectations of electronic privacy in Clicking Away Confidentiality: Workplace Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege, 60 Fla. L.R. 1179 (Dec. 2008).

Digital Signatures

Ernest Svensen has everything you need to know about digital signatures and how to create them.

Spoliation Sanctions: Gutman v. Klein

Gutman v. Klein, Case No. 03-Civ. 1570 (BMC), 2008 WL 5084182 (E.D.N.Y.) (Dec. 2, 2008) approving Report & Recommendation, 2008 WL 4682208 (Oct. 15, 2008) provides an excellent discussion of spoliation and consequent sanctions in the context of electronic discovery.

The defendant searched for and downloaded software to wipe his hard drive of evidence relevant to the case. Instead of using the data wiping software, the defendant manually deleted files. Then he reinstalled Windows XP, presumably to cover his tracks. Stroz Friedberg did a forensic examination of the laptop. Much of the spoliation evidence was identified through Stroz Friedberg’s analysis of file system meta data, file meta data, and system logs.

Based on this spoliation, the magistrate judge recommended a sanction of default judgment against the defendant and a sanction of attorneys fees related to the discovery.

An excellent resource.

Hat tip: Electronic Discovery

Florida Bar Journal Articles

This month's Florida Bar Journal contains two good basic articles on law and technology: What Every Attorney Needs to Know About Electronic Technology, by D. Patricia Wallace; and Metadata: The Ghosts Haunting e-Documents, by David Hricik and Chase Edward Scott.

Computer "Basics"

David Pogue's blog in the New York Times recently had a great "compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows–but you’re wrong." That's why I put "basics" in quotes; as basic as some of these tips may seem, there are many who don't know them.

Since David invited readers to "Clip, save and pass along," I'm doing just that. In the next couple days, I'll extract from the column and the over 1100 comments (at this writing) my favorites and link to them in three categories: General Tips, Internet Tips, and Microsoft Office Tips. Here's a sample:

• You can open the Start menu by tapping the key with the Windows logo on it.

• You can tap the Space bar to scroll down a page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.

Authenticating ESI

A few months ago, Judge Grimm of the Maryland U.S. District Court has authored a magnum opus on the issues associated with authentication and admissibility of ESI. Read it on the court's website here, or on Westlaw at Lorraine v. Markel American Ins. Co., 241 F.R.D. 534 (D. Md. 2007).

Email Tips

Came across a couple good posts on email today. This one by Raymond Ward on The New Legal Writer (an excellent legal writing blog, by the way), led me to Lynn Gaetner-Johnson's Business Writer blog, and this summary of email do's and don'ts .