eDiscovery

• August 11, 2026

  GenAI Gets Its 'Da Silva Moore' Moment: What Crowder v. LinkedIn Means for Every Producing Party's ESI Protocol

  On July 1, 2026, a federal magistrate judge became the first to expressly accept generative AI as the tool making final responsiveness determinations in litigation discovery—treating it as an evolved form of TAR under the same FRCP proportionality framework courts have applied since 2012. Litigators and in-house counsel should understand what that holding demands of their ESI protocols now, not after the order is entered.

• July 24, 2026

  Hyperlinks, Short Messages, and Generative AI: What James v. Cerebras Systems Demands of Your ESI Protocol

  In James v. Cerebras Systems Inc., the Northern District of California entered a single stipulated ESI protocol governing cloud-hosted hyperlinked documents, short message data, and generative AI workflows — the first order to combine modern-attachment handling with explicit AI-governance obligations. In-house counsel and litigators operating under legacy ESI protocols should treat this ruling as a checklist-level prompt for immediate review.

• July 13, 2026

  Collaborative Artifacts, Concrete Obligations: What Microsoft Purview's Loop and Copilot Pages Indexing Means for eDiscovery

  As of July 2026, Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) reached general availability with full-text indexing and HTML-export support for Microsoft Loop components and Copilot Pages — meaning that collaborative AI-generated artifacts are now fully searchable ESI. In-house counsel and litigators must update litigation hold frameworks, ESI inventories, and production workflows immediately.

• July 7, 2026

  Hyperlinks Are Not Attachments, and Slack Is Not Email: The James v. Cerebras ESI Protocol That Rewrites Modern Discovery Defaults

  A Northern District of California court in James v. Cerebras Systems Inc. entered a stipulated ESI protocol that resolves three of the most contested modern-data disputes in eDiscovery — hyperlinked documents, chat threading, and GenAI workflow disclosure — through order rather than adversarial motion practice. In-house counsel and litigators should treat the protocol as a template for what courts will now expect.

• June 2, 2026

  eDiscovery Meets AI: What Every Litigator and ADR Practitioner Needs to Know Right Now

  AI-assisted review has moved from experimental to expected in large-scale litigation, and its role in arbitration and mediation is growing. The practitioners who understand how these tools work — and where they fail — are positioned to win on the merits. Those who do not are taking risks they may not recognize until sanctions are already on the table.

• May 28, 2026

  Federal Courts Split on Whether Using Public GenAI Tools Waives Privilege — And Issue First AI-Specific Protective Order Mandates

  Four federal courts issued sharply diverging rulings in early 2026 on whether using consumer generative AI platforms during litigation destroys attorney-client privilege and work product protection. The emerging framework draws a critical line between consumer-tier AI tools and enterprise platforms with contractual data safeguards — a distinction every litigator and in-house counsel must understand before discovery begins.

• May 18, 2026

  Expert's AI Prompts Are Discoverable Under Rule 26, Federal Court Rules

  A Connecticut federal magistrate judge has ruled that AI prompts used by an expert witness to cull documents for review are discoverable under Rule 26 and cannot be shielded by a parties' discovery-limiting agreement. Litigators and in-house counsel must now reckon with the evidentiary footprint that generative AI leaves behind at every stage of expert preparation.

• April 28, 2026

  Copy-Paste Discovery: Court Rules AI Is Not a Substitute for Good Lawyering — And Sanctions Follow

  A federal court sanctioned plaintiff's counsel in April 2026 after finding he had copy-pasted AI-generated analysis directly into a meet-and-confer email without independent legal review, signaling that courts will no longer treat "the AI said so" as a substitute for good-faith lawyering.

• April 15, 2026

  Federal Enforcement Pause on Ephemeral Messaging Is a False Signal: Civil Spoliation Sanctions and State/International Risk Remain Fully Live

  The Trump Administration's effective pause on SEC and CFTC off-channel messaging enforcement since January 2025 has created a dangerous compliance illusion. Civil spoliation sanctions, state investigations, and international regulatory actions remain fully live — and in-house counsel who mistake federal quiet for universal permission are building liability on a foundation of sand.

• April 2, 2026

  Ephemeral and Off-Channel Messaging Hits a Tipping Point: Courts and Regulators Treat Auto-Delete as a Spoliation Choice, Not a Technical Default

  A converging line of 2025–2026 rulings and regulatory actions has settled a once-debated question: allowing auto-deletion to run on Signal, WhatsApp, or Google Chat after litigation is reasonably anticipated is now treated as an affirmative choice to destroy evidence. In-house counsel who have not yet named these platforms explicitly in their litigation holds are operating on borrowed time.

• February 13, 2025

  In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

  The attorney-client privilege is a cornerstone of legal practice, designed to foster open and honest communication between clients and their attorneys.

• February 11, 2025

  AI-Generated Metadata Hallucinations: A New Risk for Attorneys

  Generative AI can fabricate not only text but the metadata that lawyers rely on to authenticate it. Here is how to spot AI-induced metadata hallucinations and verify before you offer evidence.

• November 11, 2024

  Crafting Effective Privilege Logs for Legal Success

  The process of creating a privilege log has evolved significantly over the past few decades.

• March 26, 2024

  Using Special Masters in Social Media Litigation to Streamline Discovery: Navigating the complexities of these cases

  There has been an explosion of litigation in recent years related to the potentially life-threatening effects of social media usage among adolescents.

• March 12, 2024

  Hyperlinks and Modern Attachments: The New Frontier of E-Discovery

  Cloud links are quietly replacing traditional email attachments, breaking the parent-child model and forcing litigators to rethink how they collect, review, and produce electronically stored information.

• February 20, 2024

  The advantages of mediating Computer Fraud and Abuse Act disputes

  For CFAA cases pursued as civil matters, mediation can be an effective tool for resolving disputes, saving the parties time and money in a way that gets to the heart of the technical issues.

• January 17, 2024

  Understanding the Distinct Roles of E-Discovery and Digital Forensics

  E-discovery and digital forensics are two distinct and nuanced concepts that are often conflated in the world of legal technology.

• August 28, 2023

  Electronic Discovery and Professional Sports

  Interdependence, the mutual reliance of individuals and entities on one another, is a crucial feature of professional sports.

• August 28, 2023

  Mobile Messaging and E-Discovery

  There are two obvious partiesto every text message conversation: you, and therecipient.

• August 8, 2023

  Mastering Mobile Messaging in E-Discovery: Strategies for the Toughest Challenges

  Text, iMessage, and chat data now drive litigation. Here is how litigators preserve, collect, and produce mobile messaging while managing ephemeral data, BYOD, and proportionality.

• June 20, 2023

  Selecting and Preparing an Effective Rule 30(b)(6) Witness for E-Discovery

  A practical guide for litigators on scoping the notice, choosing a knowledgeable corporate designee, and preparing them to testify credibly about ESI systems, preservation, and collection.

• March 12, 2021

  Special Masters: When Does it Make Sense and How Do We Get One?

  Over time, disputes have become increasingly more complex.

• June 16, 2020

  How to Use Discovery Special Masters, Forensic Neutrals and Technical Special Masters

  Disputes are becoming increasingly complex.

• April 16, 2020

  Confronting The Challenges Of Virtual Mediation

  Conducting mediation via videoconference poses significant challenges, including the difficulty of reading people when you are not with them in person.

• March 20, 2020

  Avoiding Sanctions: Ethical Considerations in e-Discovery

  The ABA Model Rules of Professional Liability are an excellent starting point for the responsibilities of an attorney to their client.

• August 30, 2019

  Best Practices: Mediating Cyber Insurance Claim Disputes

  With cyber threats on the rise, many companies are purchasing cyber insurance policies to help mitigate risk.

• August 30, 2019

  Daniel Wrote the Book

  Daniel B. Garrie is consistently described by attorneys familiar with his work as a preeminent expert in several specialties at the intersection of technology and the law.

• March 26, 2019

  Arbitrating Cyber Coverage Disputes

  Policyholders buying insurance are generally focused on obtaining sufficient coverage in dollar terms for the insurance risks that they face.

• December 28, 2018

  Mediators Need to Become ‘Bilingual’ to Resolve Smart Contracts

  Blockchain technology is undoubtedly on the rise. Be it for currency, supply chain, real estate, energy, or even democracy, blockchains will soon permeate most business and consumer transactions.

• October 10, 2018

  Arbitration and Mediation Can Solve Cyber Insurance Disputes

  Litigation over ADR clauses in cyber policies is already happening, as policyholders try to elide pre-dispute ADR requirements contained in their cyber liability policies.

• March 15, 2018

  White Paper: Authenticating Social Media Evidence

  Social media evidence in particular presents unique challenges as to authentication because it can be difficult to attribute statements or actions taken via the Internet to a specific person.

• December 28, 2017

  Understanding Deleted Files, Unallocated Space, and Their Impact on eDiscovery

  This blog post addresses some of the key points regarding deleted files and unallocated space, and how these concepts come into play in e-discovery.

• May 31, 2017

  Social Media eDiscovery: How to Request and Respond

  Seeking information from social media accounts is becoming commonplace in litigation.

• April 27, 2017

  Using Discovery Special Masters, Technical Special Masters, and Forensic Neutrals

  The rise of technical issues in litigation is steadily increasing the time and cost of resolving lawsuits.

• January 11, 2017

  The Neutral Corner: Recapturing the Benefits of Predictive Coding by Using an eDiscovery Special Master

  Following a New York federal court’s approval of predictive coding in the Rio Tinto case, attorneys are increasingly using predictive coding to expedite discovery when faced with large quantities of documents.

• October 10, 2016

  The Neutral Corner: How to Effectively Use a Technical E-Discovery Neutral

  In the past two years, 90% of the world’s data has been created, coming from a wide variety of sources.

• January 4, 2016

  2016 – The Year of Cloud-Based E-Discovery?

  The year 2015 has come to an end, and cloud-based computing has entered the mainstream. One marketplace that is likely to see cloud-based computing become more fully enmeshed is the e-discovery marketplace.

• September 2, 2014

  eDiscovery and Class Actions: Limiting Discovery Disputes with Special Masters

  Class actions are often among the most explosive, costly, and challenging lawsuits faced by lawyers, courts, and litigants.

• June 14, 2014

  A Guide for the Legal Status of Software

  A court involved in litigation fraught with software themes should understand the software itself to ensure the delivery of fair and equitable legal decisions.

• June 25, 2013

  Unchaining E-Discovery in the Patent Courts

  This Article analyzes the Federal Circuit’s Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases (the “Model Order”).

• June 5, 2013

  We Need Mediation In E-Discovery

  As a practicing attorney, I have heard the word “mediation” cautiously whispered in the courthouse hallways.

• June 27, 2012

  The E-Discovery Dance For Patents: Changing The Tune

  In this regard, several problems, as set forth below, can potentially arise when counsel or the courts use the model order.

• April 22, 2012

  Effective Keyword Selection Requires a Mastery of Storage Technology and the Law

  A poorly designed search term list guarantees that the parties will have to perform a series of subsidiary searches as gaps and problems in the original search become apparent.

• March 1, 2009

  Digital Issues in Mergers & Acquisitions, E-Discovery, & Information Technology Systems

  One of the persistent puzzles surrounding mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity is its propensity for failure.

• June 14, 2006

  Electronic Discovery and the Challenge Posed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

  Sarbanes-Oxley compels public companies to invest millions in new technology while exempting private corporations from these costs.

← All insights