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
• ...

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.

1.  ...

The eDiscovery frenzy that has gripped the American legal system over the past decade has largely eluded our European counterparts.  This is due in large part to the broad and fastidious protections of European privacy laws.  Another reason is found in Europe’s narrower discovery rules, which forbid categorical document requests authorized by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  The result is that many companies that operate in Europe may feel insulated from the need to implement eDiscovery-related information governance procedures.

Having a laissez-faire attitude toward information governance is troubling enough.  But taking no action to prepare for eDiscovery is worse.  That is especially the case for companies operating in Europe that maintain offices in the United States.  They may unwittingly fall into an “American style” discovery trap for unsuspecting litigants in foreign proceedings.  That discovery trap is 28 U....