eDiscovery Daily Blog

• March 13, 2018

Criminal cases have long been thought of as an arena devoid of electronic discovery issues. But attorneys who regularly handle criminal cases know that’s not the case. So, are there any guidelines and best practices for handling eDiscovery in criminal cases?  There are, and we’re going to discuss them in a webcast next week.

But first, this week’s eDiscovery Tech Tip of the Week (which I forgot to post last Friday, oops!) is about Stemming and Synonym Searching.  When performing keyword searching, it may be difficult to think of every variation of a word to search for or other words that have the same meaning that may also be relevant.  Stemming searching is a way to catch those variations of terms and Synonym searching is a way to catch other terms that mean essentially the same thing as the desired term.  Both mechanisms help expand the potential recall of your search and enable you to locate additional important ESI to your case that might otherwise be missed, simply because those additional relevant terms weren’t identified.  You don’t want to miss an important document just because you didn’t think to search for a variation of the word, do you?  Didn’t think so… :o)

To see an example of how Stemming and Synonym Searching is conducted using our CloudNine platform, click here (requires BrightTalk account, which is free).

Anyway, on Wednesday, March 21 at noon CST (1:00pm EST, 10:00am PST), CloudNine will conduct the webcast Understanding eDiscovery in Criminal Cases In this one-hour webcast that’s CLE-approved in selected states, we will take a look at the history of the development of standards and highlight specific issues of importance regarding eDiscovery in criminal matters. Topics include:

• Overview of Rules for Criminal Matters
• How Data is Acquired in Criminal Matters
• Common Data Types and Examples of Cases
• Data Exchange Formats and Protocols
• Time Issues Specific to Criminal ESI
• Working with Social Media as Evidence
• Border Entry Considerations and Examples
• Resources for More Information

Once again, I’ll be presenting the webcast, along with Tom O’Connor, who recently wrote an article about eDiscovery in criminal cases that we covered as a terrific five part informational overview.  I love it when Tom provides the topic and makes my life easier!  To register for it, click here.  Even if you can’t make it, go ahead and register to get a link to the slides and to the recording of the webcast (if you want to check it out later).  If you’re interested in eDiscovery for criminal law, this is the webcast for you!

{Side note: with two posts this week from Tom on his ALSP series, his thought leader interview tomorrow and this post, it’s unofficially Tom O’Connor week on the blog!}

Also, we’re getting ever closer to the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, which will be held on Thursday, March 29.  As always, the conference will be conducted in Gainesville, FL on the University of Florida Levin College of Law campus (as well as being livestreamed), with CLE-accredited sessions all day from 8am to 5:30pm ET.  I’m on a panel discussion at 9am ET in a session titled Getting Critical Information From The Tough Locations – Cloud, IOT, Social Media, And Smartphones! with Craig Ball, Kelly Twigger, with Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.  Click here to register for the conference – it’s only $199 for the entire day in person and only $99 for livestream attendance.  Don’t miss it!

So, what do you think?  Do you struggle with eDiscovery in criminal cases?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.