Don’t Try This at Home, Revisited, by Craig Ball, Ball In Your Court

https://ballinyourcourt.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/dont-try-this-at-home-revisited/

This is the fifth in a series revisiting Ball in Your Court columns and posts from the primordial past of e-discovery–updating and critiquing in places, and hopefully restarting a few conversations. As always, your comments are gratefully solicited.

Don’t Try This at Home

[Originally published in Law Technology News, August 2005]

The legal assistant on the phone asked, “Can you send us copies of their hard drives?”

As court-appointed Special Master, I’d imaged the contents of the defendant’s computers and served as custodian of the data for several months. The plaintiff’s lawyer had been wise to lock down the data before it disappeared, but like the dog that caught the car, he didn’t know what to do next. Now, with trial a month away, it was time to start looking at the evidence.

“Not unless the judge orders me to give them to you,” I replied. . . .