Chair, Tessa Jacob, Senior Counsel | 816.983.8233 | [email protected]
As chair of Husch Blackwell’s eDiscovery group, Tessa is responsible for establishing and implementing best practices for eDiscovery, as well as providing the related education and training for our attorneys and litigation technology staff. A practicing attorney for 20 years, Tessa has a strong understanding of the legal, technical and strategic aspects of eDiscovery. She has vast experience with large volume litigation and government investigations and works in the tenches handling preservation and collection, analyzing data, and managing review teams. Tessa also has tremendous experience using the firm’s data mining tools and technology assisted review. A part of Tessa’s practice also includes working with clients to evaluate and create efficient, repeatable, scalable legal hold processes.
Co-Chair, Megan Scheiderer, Partner | 816.983.8295 | [email protected]
An experienced litigator, Megan represents corporate clients in business disputes and employment litigation in jurisdictions across the nation. She brings her knowledge and training in the technical and legal aspects of eDiscovery to bear on client matters, steering the logistics of discovery in cases from start to finish, with specific focus on efficiency and defensibility. Co-chair of Husch Blackwell’s eDiscovery Solutions team, Megan partners with businesses that are varied in size, structure, and bandwidth for legal and IT support. Megan skillfully customized her approach to each client in order to lower costs without compromising legal strategy. A “go to” resource for all things eDiscovery, Megan is also responsible for firm training and education.
Erica Doerhoff, Associate | 314.480.1910 | [email protected]
Erica, a member of the firm’s Financial Services & Capital Markets industry team, focuses on complex commercial litigation in state and federal courts. Her experience includes commercial disputes, class actions, breaches of contract and warranty, ERISA, professional liability, state consumer fraud, insurance coverage, bad faith, commercial general liability and product liability matters. She has been involved in all phases of litigation, from drafting case-critical pleadings and dispositive motions to trial and appellate practice. She has also coordinated discovery and advised on eDiscovery issues. She was a member of a trial team in a complex dispute over insurance coverage for environmental remediation costs that resulted in a multimillion-dollar judgment for the client following a jury trial. She advises major corporations and professional services firms, among other clients.
Leslie Gutierrez, Associate | 414.978.5490 | [email protected]
Leslie counsels corporations of all sizes, family-owned businesses, construction companies and entrepreneurs on legal issues related to their business and industry and on preventing and resolving disputes. She has managed a wide variety of litigation matters, including contract disputes, common law fraud claims, trust construction and termination actions, real estate disputes, zoning board appeals, products liability defense, breach of fiduciary duty claims, breach of warranty claims, noncompetition claims, construction disputes and class action defense. Leslie also assists with the firm’s eDiscovery Solutions team. She has extensive experience directing, managing and overseeing the ediscovery process from case inception to case closure. With her experience, Leslie assists in providing efficient and strategic solutions to ediscovery projects across the firm.
Husch Blackwell’s eDiscovery Solutions Team
Arizona | Colorado | Illinois | Missouri | Nebraska | Tennessee | Texas | Washington, D.C. | Wisconsin | England
huschblackwell.com
Timothy Hilton, Associate | 816.983.8294 | tim [email protected]
In addition to providing eDiscovery support and expertise on firm matters, Tim focuses his practice on defending employers against employee lawsuits and counseling employers on best practices to avoid potential liability. Additionally, he has a focus on employment-based immigration compliance, specifically related to Form I-9 and E-Verify. Tim has defended a variety of state and federal employment claims at the agency, trial and appellate levels, including race, sex, age and disability discrimination claims, wage and hour claims, and breach of contract claims.
Samantha Lunn, Senior Counsel | 423.755.2653 | samantha [email protected]
As a member of the Financial Services & Capital Markets industry team, Samantha represents businesses in complex commercial litigation. In addition to providing eDiscovery support and expertise on firm matters, she counsels clients on securities litigation, white collar investigations and litigation, insurance litigation, employment matters, trade disputes and eDiscovery. Prior to joining Husch Blackwell, Samantha served as advisor and in-house counsel for a manufacturing company, where she advised on legal, accounting, employment and regulatory matters. Samantha also has experience setting up and advising 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entities.
Steven Neeley, Associate | 202.378.2331 | [email protected]
Steve is a member of Husch Blackwell’s Energy and Natural Resources and Government Contracts groups. In addition to providing eDiscovery support and expertise on firm matters, he focuses on litigation and arbitration of complex commercial disputes involving renewable energy, construction and government contracts. Steve has extensive experience advising and representing renewable energy developers in the preparation and pursuit of warranty claims against several global original equipment manufacturers. He has also assisted renewable energy project owners on numerous transactional and corporate matters affecting day-to-day project operations, including compliance issues arising under contracts with the U.S. government agencies. Steve’s construction and government contracts practice includes assisting owners, general contractors and subcontractors in claims or disputes in both state and federal court litigation and alternative dispute resolution proceedings.
Afton Sands-Puryear, Partner | 512.479.1143 | [email protected]
In addition to providing eDiscovery support and expertise on firm matters, Afton represents clients in a broad range of commercial and business litigation matters in state and federal court. Her experience includes representing healthcare clients in False Claims Act litigation, Fair Labor Standards Act litigation, and representing debtors, creditors, and trustees in bankruptcy court. Many of these matters have involved the management of large electronic document collections and productions. Afton has managed the discovery logistics of these cases from initial analysis of strategy, to collection, through review, and, ultimately, production. She has managed the review teams utilizing different review platforms. In addition, she has handled negotiations of search terms, search strategy, custodians, and other relevant issues with opposing counsel.
© 2016 Husch Blackwell LLP. All Rights Reserved.
Five Things Every GC Should Know About Its IT Environment
Husch Blackwell eDiscovery Solutions
Tessa Jacob and Megan Scheiderer
December 6, 2016
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© 2016 H usch B l ack we l l LLP
Why YOU Need to Know
Understanding the basics about your IT system will help:
Avoid over/under collection = Save Resources
Increase likelihood that actions were reasonable
= Reduce time spent on discovery disputes, more time on Case Merits
Limit how much time lawyers need to spend with individual custodians
= Reduce distractions from Business Operations
Master facts earlier in the case= Control of the pace of case; more
offense and less defense (or vice versa); focus on case Strategy
YOU MIGHT BE THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES KNOW
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1. Where Are Emails and Chats Stored and for How Long?
Employee Communications – email and chats
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Type of Email System
Type of System
– Version
Where is the server located?
– Premises/ IT Vendor/ Cloud Service
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Email Server – What’s On It?
• When was the server implemented/deployed?
• Were emails from prior server migrated into new server?
What is the time frame of emails in
the server?
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Email Server – Settings
Offline or Online Storage
Auto purges
Size Limitations
Time Setting
Is the company Journaling email?
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Email Archives Archive variations
– Type of archive
– When was it implemented
– Were all emails pushed into archive
– Has it been purged
Are all users on same retention
– Legal Hold Capabilities
– Searching and export functions
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Office 365 & Google Business
Settings
– Retention Settings
– PSTs
What was migrated
Contract/Plan
Archive
Admin Functions
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Instant Messaging Type of IM application
How is it configured?
Is logging turned on?
– Future logging
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Other Considerations
Can employees access company systems from outside the office?
– Access route
– Access Logs
Mobile Device Management
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2. Where Do Employees Save Documents?
User Files – documents, spreadsheets, presentations
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Common Storage Locations• Server Location
– On Prem or Cloud?
• Types of Directories/Drives– Personal drives/folders - network
– Shared drives/folders - network
– Local storage – computer, external media
– Document management system - network
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Questions About Storage Options Restrictions/Policies
– Are employees instructed to save certain types of documents in specific places? Monitored? Automatic? Enforced? Re-Direction – documents saved locally moved to
network storage– Access Are certain storage locations restricted to certain
persons/groups? Which folders/drives can IT access remotely? Deletion/edits – who has rights?
Search capabilities Preservation – “in place” options
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3. What Happens to Departing Employee Data?
Departing Employees
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• Do you have a waiting period prior to wiping/re-use of hardware, or deleting email?
• Do you have a list of company assets in the possession of each employee?
• Is IT provided notification of all legal holds and the persons subject to them?
• Who is the person responsible for assessing the litigation implications of the departure (i.e., subject to a hold)
• Are new/re-assigned employees informed of the litigation hold to which its predecessor/predecessor’s data was subject?
• What is covered in exit interviews?
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4. How Quickly Must You Act?
Back-Ups
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Backups
*You Really Need to Know the Backup Cycle*
but also helpful:
●Type ● Legacy ● Back-Ups Often Irrelevant
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5. What is the Skill Level and Capacity of the IT Department?
The Information Technology Department’s Role
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Understand capacity
Understand skill level
Create a process
– What’s the paper trail?
Designate an owner of the process
Communicate
Follow-up
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Paper Trail Why Who creates
documentation? What needs to be
documented– Implementation of
preservation requests– Collection requests– Who/when/where
searched for data– Could not locate data
Chain of Custody Forms
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Questions?