A new effort to inform busy litigators, TechnoLawyer recently released a 2-part “Micro-Symposium” on litigation best practices for their free LitigationWorld newsletter.

Leading e-discovery experts were commissioned to respond—in less than 150 words—to the question, “What best practice and/or technology do many litigators not currently use that would help them achieve better results for clients?”

Notable contributors also include Craig Ball, Ralph Losey, and John Tredennick. Brett Burney provided the following advice regarding the importance of keeping up with clients’ email practices—as well as being able to speak to the increasing likelihood of cloud-based email services:

Email is still one of the juiciest sources of electronic evidence in litigation matters, but most attorneys just toss some vague instructions to their clients on how to search, collect, and preserve those crucial messages.

Seventy-two percent of enterprises have at least one piece of their technology infrastructure in the cloud today — and it’s often their email. Companies of all sizes are moving to either Google Apps for Work or Microsoft Office 365.

It’s important to know what subscription level your client is using since higher-end options offer Google Vault for archiving and ediscovery tools, or Compliance Center for legal holds and analytics through Microsoft’s acquisition of Equivio. You’ll need to talk directly with your client’s IT administrator to ensure they are utilizing these built-in tools appropriately.

You don’t need to become an expert in cloud computing, but litigators must be better informed about how their clients are accessing, storing, and collecting email.

TechnoLawyer publishes free newsletters targeted to the legal community on legal product reviews, practice management tips, and other helpful information on a variety of topics. You can read more helpful information from the “Micro-Symposium on Litigation Best Practices” by subscribing to TechnoLawyer’s LitigationWorld newsletter.

Brett Burney is the Principal of Burney Consultants, an independent eDiscovery consultation company, based in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brett Burney is quoted in an article for Legaltechnews.com entitled “Pursuing Legal Cloud Computing Security Standards: Legal Market Reactions” that appeared on March 24, 2016. The article was authored by Marriott Murdock, Marketing Director for NetDocuments.

Brett Burney:

Most cloud computing services today are developed for the general consumer market. Every user certainly has a general desire to keep their data private, but lawyers have an additional ethical duty to protect information entrusted to them. Most consumer-focused cloud services either don’t know this or they don’t care. The LCCA Security Standards are a superb start. The vendors in the LCCA have been answering the same, repetitive, fear/uncertainty/doubt questions from lawyers on security for years now so it makes sense they create a set of consistent standards. Besides, the ABA and approximately 20 states have already addressed the topic and allow lawyers to store client confidential information in the cloud as long as they take reasonable precautions to protect the information. That’s the same standard imposed on lawyers for protecting information on their mobile devices (passcode) and laptops (passwords & encryption).

You can read the full article on Legaltechnews.com entitled “Pursuing Legal Cloud Computing Security Standards: Legal Market Reactions – Insights into the latest LCCA Security and Data Privacy Standards.”