Symantec eDiscovery

Every day that I talk to customers, I personally encounter the need to bridge the knowledge and political gaps to make policy and purchasing decisions within corporations regarding eDiscovery.  The other side of the coin has been that judges and outside counsel, as well as industry experts are coming together to find solutions to deal with these eDiscovery challenges in the courtroom.   The 7th Circuit Principles do just that, and are driving proactive behavior in addressing ESI, much to the pleasure of Judges. 

It worked in the 7th Circuit, and evangelists are jumping on board in other Circuits, including the 9th Circuit.  Art Gollwitzer, previously lived in Chicago and is a member of the 7th Circuit eDiscovery Pilot Program Committee.  He practices patent law and was key in the formation of the Principles,...

Pretty exciting time here in the eDiscovery world at the Carmel Valley Ranch this week!  Not too long ago, we at Symantec had our annual off-site at the Carmel Valley Ranch and dug deep into our Enterprise Vault 10 launch as well as what our eDiscovery plans were for FY12.  That was in April, and now in July, I am here at the same venue with Clearwell now part of Symantec, in our first event together.  I remember having numerous conversations intra company in April about what we needed to do in order to give our customers the full eDiscovery capability they were looking for and how to complete the Information Governance offering.  With our landmark acquisition, and its tremendous effect on the eDiscovery market, we now look to another landmark event.

Monday kicked off with Laura Zubulake’s keynote address giving an overview of what her personal experience was in the famous Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 220 F.R.D. 212 (S.D.N.Y. 2003) case....

A big welcome to Clearwell, customers, partners and employees!  Today, Clearwell Systems, a leader in eDiscovery, is now part of Symantec.  This means our two teams are officially working together to provide both Clearwell and Symantec customers exceptional end-to-end information management solutions spanning archiving, backup and eDiscovery.

We have already begun work on more robust integration between Clearwell and Enterprise Vault.  Our goal is to provide Symantec customers access to enhanced eDiscovery functionality and Clearwell customers access to a broader set of integrated information management solutions from one vendor – Symantec. Together we will help customers:

• Reduce costs across all phases represented in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, from information management through review and production
• Reduce risk by improving the defensibility and repeatability of their archiving and eDiscovery processes
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The landmark sanctions order in Phillip M. Adams & Associates v. Dell, 621 F.Supp.2d 1173 (D. Utah 2009) has been adopted by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart.  Finally made available to the public last week after a nine-month delay (http://1.usa.gov/lz5Ekj), Judge Stewart’s order (http://bit.ly/iT5ciG- PACER, sign-up req’d) fully embraced the magistrate’s holding that organizations have an obligation to preserve relevant evidence after the duty to preserve attaches.  The court thus imposed a negative inference jury instruction against defendants Asustek Computer and Asus Computer Intl. for their evidence spoliation.  It should come as no surprise that the jury then returned a verdict against those defendants.

With the Adams sanction order finally in the books, it is worth reviewing why that decision was so noteworthy.

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