Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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BUSINESS CASE produce some guiding principles that would be universally ac- ceptable in addressing the disclosure and discovery of electroni- cally stored information in Canadian civil litigation. After much consultation and consideration, this first edition of the Sedona Canada Principles was released. Now the effort shifts to educating people about what it's all about and how it can help lawyers and their clients deal with the often-over- whelming experience of e-discovery. "One unfortunate way to educate people about e-discovery is to have them involved in the e-discovery process. After that, they understand why they need to keep their inbox clean," said Dom- inic Jaar, counsel for Bell Canada. He says the Sedona Canada Principles will give in-house counsel a context or a goal to reach that will help build a company's infrastructure around informa- tion management, but that it needs to be approached in three parts: policy, infrastructure, and education. "One cannot go without the other," says Jaar. "In order to have effective e-discovery and protect metadata, you need a map of your whole IT infrastructure." Taking stock of a company's inventory of laptops, desktops, PDAs, and software can be a thankless and prolonged task, but Jaar says it's the only place to start. "Obviously the easiest way to get management to take it seriously is to get sued," he says, but that's not the best way. He says that after taking stock of the infrastructure, an um- brella policy should be created, under which there are policies on document retention, deletion, internet use, and education, for instance. The Sedona Canada Principles can guide the de- velopment of these policies by explaining what will be required, technologically speaking, in the event of litigation in general, and e-discovery specifically. Martin Felsky agrees. "This report should be a very helpful and useful document for in-house counsel," he says. "It's not the answer to all of your questions but it is a very good road map." Felsky is the CEO of Commonwealth Legal Inc., a company offering trial preparation and presentation services that in- cludes e-discovery consulting. Companies like Commonwealth Legal can electronically capture all e-mail files and hundreds of other file formats from computer hard drives, servers, back-up tapes, CD-ROMs, and floppy disks. Then they offer the service of taking the raw data and culling it through various search engines, to be assembled in a database and hosted on the web so that lawyers, clients, and experts can review the documents for relevance and privilege. By way of example, Felsky relates the story of one client, a large company in Canada involved in a regulatory investigation here and in the U.S., while also facing a potential class action THE DIFFERENCE ? THE COMPANY YOU ASK FOR HELP. Canada's Leader in Global Evidence Management Solutions lost or found Finding the right people to manage your litigation support can make the difference between winning and losing a case. Commonwealth Legal provides industry-leading evidence management solutions including electronic discovery, secure web-based review, scanning, coding, consulting and profes- sional services support. Contact us today to find out how we can make the difference in your case. COST BENEFITS | TIME SAVINGS | COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 1- 866-LAW-SCAN (529-7226) • www.commonwealthlegal.com 28 JUNE 2008 C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE Untitled-5 1 4/24/08 2:46:29 PM