McAfee & Taft litigation attorney Jim Webb was quoted in a recent Journal Record article about the growing complexity of new e-discovery rules signed into law this month.
Webb compared the modern convenience of using email to organize a meeting versus other methods. "In the past," Webb stated, "This would have been done with one phone call. It would have generated no documents. Now, when all is said and done, there may be 100 e-mails and texts come from this, just to schedule a meeting."
The article discussed how the growing complexity of e-discovery could come under scrutiny, including concerns over metadata in electronically stored information (ESI). It also outlined the new e-discovery rules that were signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry, which brought Oklahoma procedures in line with existing federal practices. When these changes take effect, some analysts expect this to rattle attorneys and firms rarely exposed to federal courts or who are still coming to grips with the vast extent of electronic communications and commerce.
"There's a lot of things people say in electronic communications that they would never have said in a written memo," said Webb. "Instead of a single memo, there may be 1,000 e-mails going back and forth. And many of them may be nonsubstantive, but that doesn't make them nondiscoverable."
You can read the entire article here.