September 23, 2021
Companies now use ephemeral messaging as an authorized communication tool to advance legitimate business objectives. With automated deletion of message content and end-to-end encryption, ephemeral messaging apps like Wickr and Signal offer a secure communication platform that may facilitate compliance with data protection and privacy laws. Nevertheless, companies must exercise caution when using ephemeral messaging, particularly when litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated.
August 19, 2021
Emojis are an important aspect of everyday communication in 2021. Given their ubiquity, there should be little surprise that emojis have become a key source of evidence in civil and criminal cases. This was certainly the case in Rossbach v. Montefiore Medical Center. In Rossbach, the court determined that a purported salacious and inappropriate text message plaintiff submitted in support of her harassment and retaliation claims had been fabricated based on (among other things) characteristics of the “heart eyes” emoji embedded in the message.
August 9, 2021
Driven CEO Ozzy Jimenez Named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2021 Mid-Atlantic Award Winner
Driven CEO Ozzy Jimenez was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2021 Mid-Atlantic Award winner in a virtual ceremony held on Tuesday, September 5.
July 20, 2021
Courts have repeatedly emphasized that lawyers should take actionable steps at the outset of litigation to safeguard the preservation of relevant ESI. One of those steps typically includes investigating and understanding client information systems that contain relevant information. This is particularly the case with social media and messaging apps whose content is dynamic and—barring swift action—can easily be modified and destroyed. The recent Doe v. Purdue University case—in which the court sanctioned plaintiff for failing to preserve relevant images and videos from his Snapchat application—underscores this point.
June 29, 2021
The Association of Corporate Counsel (“ACC”) has published a new survey report that discusses significant challenges companies are facing when it comes to preserving and producing relevant electronically stored information (“ESI”) for U.S. litigation. In particular, the report provides detailed metrics that spotlight a correlation between information governance maturity and discovery responsiveness. Understanding this correlation can help companies identify gaps in their upstream information governance programs, which should yield better downstream results when they need to preserve and produce relevant ESI in litigation.