Having lived through e-discovery experiences while at Enron Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., there are clearly some important lessons learned.
Contrary to popular opinion, e-discovery did not begin with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York’s decisions in the early part of this decade in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, et al. or even the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2006. E-discovery has been part of the litigation process since litigants began using computers to store data, but lawyers routinely brought paper to courtrooms, not the electronic data. Today the vast majority of all information is electronic, and, as a result, one must assume every suit has electronic evidence.
Based on our experiences at Enron and Wal-Mart, we may be able to assist others who are or will be confronted with important e-discovery issues.