Legal Commentary

In our February issue of Law Technology News magazine, Cecil Lynn III did a wonderful job identifying and analyzing the most important 2010 cases that addressed electronic data discovery issues. See, "Drama & Destruction." 

He's not the only person parsing the year:

? David Lender, a partner at Weil Gotshal & Manges, and Andrew Peck, Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote a white paper for HuronLegal, "Ten Key E-Discovery Issues to Watch in 2011: Expert Insight to Manage Successfully. Download here.

Among the issues they ID is international e-discovery, a topic LTN will continue to explore as the nuances of EDD ? and compliance ? continue to develop.

Says the pair: "The difficulties in electronic discovery are multiplied when some of a party?s electronically stored information is located outside the United States. Countries in the European Union, Asia, and elsewhere have data privacy statutes and blocking statutes. It may be virtually impossible for a company to comply with its U.S. discovery obligations without violating another country?s data privacy statutes. For example ... the first thing a company must do if it reasonably anticipates litigation is initiate a litigation hold; however, the mere step of preserving ESI may violate EU data privacy laws."

? Gibson Dunn & Crutcher ? which recently announced that it has launched an IT and Data Privacy unit, offered this wrap up earlier this year.