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Can social networking sites help (or hurt) your case?

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E-discovery?

Social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, Twitter ... (must I go on?) have taken the world by storm. At the present time, Facebook and MySpace alone are currently attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites each month.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a handy list of law enforcement guides for the various social network sites. The information was obtained via FOIA requests. If you need information about how to subpoena one of the sites this is a great place to start.

This years sponsors include: Alix Partners, Aphelion Legal, BIA, Crowell Mooring, Encore Discovery, Epiq Systems, Guidance Software, Integreon Discovery Solutions, Jurinnov, Kroll OnTrack, Mayer Brown, Peak Discovery, Precision Discovery, Recommind, RenewData/Digital Mandate, Shook Hardy & Bacon, TCDI, UHY Advisors, and Winston & Strawn.

Bob Ambrogi will be tellin you everything you need to know about it in the December LTN, but Ill post a few links here shortly as well from others who have splained it.

The good news is that social media is just like any other form of electronically stored information - the only difference is that it is a new and unmiliar technology to both lawyers and the courts. I expect many of the authentication challenges we are currently seeing will not be long lived as the courts become comfortable with it, social media sites strengthenthere policies, and new e-discovery technology is developed to handle it. For now,sten your seat-belts,its could be a bumpy ride.

The issue involves a much reported afir between a British soccer player and a reality TV star. British coverage is extensive see here and here for a start.

To not to give away any spoilers (and I wont), I will point out where e-discovery and Twitter come into play. However, to be on the safe side, its probably best to do that after the jump.

In this new monthly podcast, editor-in-chief of Law Technology News Monica Bay interviews key experts of the legal technology community on top issues confronting the legal profession.

Waters takes the product for a test drive in his article for LTN, X1 Social Discovery Collects Data in Social Networks.

Ive created a Twitter ID for EDD Update - Check it out here:

As we have seen on MySpace and Facebook, millions of users daily chronicle the intimate details of their lives including posts of their current relationship status, feelings, opinions. Many even include photographs and videos documenting their lives. Even the professional networking site Linked In, is now trying to become more social by adding a blog application. Most users often dont consider the evidence they are creating.

Last November, the Federal Judicial Center published a report on Jurors Use of Social Media During Trials and Deliberations, which concluded that despite various prevention efforts, jurors continue to use social media.

Twitter in Europe presents the latest example of discovery of information about social media users colliding with free speech concerns.

Authenticating social media evidence can be a slippery slope when lawyers bring up issues such as the security policy of the social media site, the security of the computer or device used to access the account, access controls on both ends and how the pages were collected for evidence. For those reasons, computer forensic experts will play a role in authenticating social media evidence for the forseeable future.

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Courts are struggling with rising social media misconduct by jurors, posing a threat to the fundamental guarantee of a ir trial.

Enter X1 Discovery with its flagship product X1 Social Discovery, which was on display at the exhibit hall at LegalTech New York a few months after its October launch.

With more than 700 million Facebook users and 200 million people with Twitter accounts, evidence from social media is quickly becoming relevant to just about every litigation dispute and investigation.This is just the beginning of a new wave of e-discovery products specifically designed to handle the challenges of social media.

X1 Social Discovery establishes a defensible chain of custody. MD5 hash values of individual social media items are calculated upon capture and maintained through export. Automated logging and reports are generated. Key metadata unique to social media streams are captured throughintegration with APIs provided by the leading social media sites.

John Patzakis, CEO ofX1 Discoveryand former president and CEO of Guidance Software, just announced the release ofX1 Social Discovery. The software willcollect,new york asian escort authenticate, Social Networking, search, review and produce data from popular socialmedia sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.X1 delivers a litigationworkflow from search and collection through production in searchable nativeformat, while preserving critical metadata not possible through traditional imagecapture, printouts, or raw data archival of RSS feeds.

Ezor further investigates in what situations might evidence gathered through lse friending be admissable -- even if the lawyer violated ethical rules. For private attorneys, state law could permit it.

Is it ever justifiable when dealing with social media to search beyond posts that are publicly available?

Continue reading Tweeting Jurors Causing Judicial Headaches »

People become friends for all kinds of reasons. Jonathan Ezor looks into the ethics of attorneys friending witnesses or opposing parties via social media such as Facebook to gain access to evidence in False Friends: the Ethical Limits of Discovery via Social Media.

Continue reading Twitter in EurSocial Networking EDD UpdateopSocial Networkinge »

Continue reading The New Smoking Gun...Social Networking Sites »

After reading Dan Browns follow up to I found it interesting to seeatiny bit of e-discovery mentioned in his novel--so to speak. Even more surprising, Brown alsocited the popular social media tool,Twitter,as well.

Ancient mysteries.

By Michael Roach at 10:51 PM in From LawTechnologyNews.com , Product Review , Comments (0)TrackBack (0)

The Hon. Amy J. St. Eve, U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Illinois recently conducted her own informal poll on this topic which was published just last week in the Duke Law &lledEnsuring An Impartial Jury In The Age Of Social Media.Her conclusion was that strong jury instructions on social media use does work.

A recent article in the ALMs Connecticut Law Tribune provides a glimpse into the courts struggle with authenticating social media evidence. The Connecticut case discussed in the article was about using cebook postings to impeach the credibility of a witness. The witness claimed her account was hacked and the court accepted her theory and ruled the evidence inadmissible.

AndTwitter?

As promised --

An article in The New York Times suggests that this has quickly become another test over how r the rights to privacy and free speech extend online, where social media operate in countries with vastly different laws.

As John Waters writes, the software was designed specifically to collect, index, search, and preview social media content generated by the three most popular systems: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Among its vaunted features are its ability to preserve chain of custody with social network content and to capture and preserve its metadata.

Hat tip to Kevin OKeefe: for Twitter Tips for Beginners:

Thrilling suspense.

And heres Nicole Blacks recent article, Twitter 101 for Lawyers, from the Nov 3 issue of

Continue reading Join the Pizza After Party, Support eDiscovery Research! »

As I was getting the kids ready for their camps this morning, I was watching an interestinginterview with a psychologist on our local news station. They psychologist quoted numerous studies about human emotions and said that overwhelmingly the studies proved that people make decisions based on two of the seven emotions: pleasure and fear. That is not surprising, but if you take a moment to truly think about it, it is eye opening inour world of e-discovery. Ibelieve the newe-discovery frontier is upon us...social networking sites where pleasure and fear are logged instantaneously and honestly. In the world we live in today, everyone is linked instantaneously through numerous technologies. Some even tweet their every minute, every emotion and every feeling. I was visiting an acquaintances cebook last week and she put on there I am sick of this and I am leaving him.

Continue reading A Tweet of e-Discovery Found in The Lost Symbol »

In the April issue of Law Technology News, Craig Ball chronicles how Facebook has quietly created a one-button tool that captures a users content on the social media site.

Continue reading Social Networking and its Effects on eDiscovery »

Masonic rituals.

Its a great opportunity to interact and mingle with some of the leading e-discovery jurists, lawyers and providers. Last years party drew 150 participants, and it looks like this years partywill have an even larger crowd.

From Stephen Nipper (

The issue arose when the player obtained an injunction from a British court preventing the media from reporting the story of the alleged afir. Many Twitter users responded by repeatedly posting his name. The electronic discovery issue arose when the player sought a court order compelling Twitter to reveal the identities of the users who had posted his name.

With Facebook membership passing 800 billion and Twitter at more than 300 million users, thats a lot of data to rummage through. Small wonder that social media discovery is an emerging area of interest for e-discovery practitioners and providers.

Richard Raysman (partner, Holland & Knight) and Peter Brown, (partner, Baker & Hostetler), report that more than 250 million photos are uploaded daily on Facebook, in addition to links, blog posts and other content. Much of that material can be used to impeach parties and witnesses, they note but due to the possibility of impersonation and digital brication, the content usually must be corroborated. They discuss recent caselaw in their article here, which appeared 11/11 in the New York Law Journal.

X1 also just released their white on the topic: Overcoming Potential Legal Challenges to theAuthentication of Social Media Evidence for eDiscovery.

In short order, the user gets an e-mail advising that the information is packaged and ready for download, writes Ball. Then, all the user need do is supply their password to verify their identity and click Download Now. What arrives is a compressed local snapshot of the users Facebook environment offering an easy-to-navigate intece. You can almost hear the voice from the Staples ad saying, That was easy.