Description

Courts, litigants, and commentators continue to grapple with the issues raised by the challenge of discovering documents contained in electronic databases. Discovery rules that were crafted in an age of paper records are being applied regularly to massive amounts of electronic data maintained by corporations and individuals alike. Among the many complex issues prompted by the rise of electronic discovery, the most diffi cult concern the appropriate standards for retention of electronic information, the effi cient determination of the scope of discoverable information, and, of obvious importance, the choice of the party to bear the substantial costs of retention, retrieval, and review of electronic data. These issues are further complicated by the specter of sanctions motions, which one study has shown to be more than a phantom threat. 1 There have been a number of signifi cant developments in this area. Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, designed to address various issues raised by electronically stored information, became eff ective on December 1, 2006. The federal courts’ case law has been working out the scope and eff ect of these amendments. Courts throughout the country have issued a number of notable rulings concerning electronic discovery.

Theodore O. Rogers, Jr. heads the Labor and Employment Law Group of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. He is a graduate of Harvard College (1976) and Harvard Law School (1979). He joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 1979 and has been a partner of the firm since 1987. Mr. Rogers was named 2012 “New York City Labor Law-Management Lawyer of the Year” by the Best Lawyers in America, and has been named one of the 100 leading management attorneys in the country by the publication Human Resource Executive each of the last four years. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, a standing member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section and a member of the American Law Institute.  Christina Andersen is an associate in the litigation group of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and engages in a broad variety of litigation activities, including labor and employment law litigation. She is a graduate of Harvard College (2003), Yale Law School (2009) and also received an M.A. from Yale University in Political Science (2006). At Yale Law School, she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and Executive Editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. She joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 2009.