If someone could come up with a solution to the problem of how to deal with everything which has piled up during an absence from the office on holiday, I suspect they would be very popular. Indeed if they could bottle it and sell it they would undoubtedly make a fortune! In the ever moving world of technology, it is hard enough to keep up with developments when at work but catching up on what has happened after coming back to the office presents a serious problem.
This month is no exception.
Some of the developments are characterised by exotic names and some are rather more prosaic!
Take for instance the exotic-sounding litigation between the Russian oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich which resulted in the first judgment of a judge of the Chancery Division, Mann J, sitting with a judge of the Commercial Court, Mrs Justice Gloster. They gave joint directions at a CMC. Add in a Patarkatsishvili and a Derpaska and you have a veritable cocktail of the new Russia: Two Heads are better than one, The Lawyer, 11th August, 21010. I bet there will be a large amount of e-disclosure to deal with. Will it be Smart I wonder?
Talking of name calling, I always remember with fondness Private Eye’s Sue, Grabbitt and Runne. For a law firm it is quite a name but it pales by comparison with a firm in LA. Branded the longest law firm name in US, see what you can make of Ziffren Brittenham Branca Fischer Gilbert-Lurie Stiffelman Cook Johnson Landa and Wolf. An acronym would be difficult!
Divorce cases do not feature often in this blog but I was attracted by the name of one I read about recently involving members of the Tchenguiz family of property developers. Tchenguiz & Ors v Imerman [2010] EWCA Civ 908 is a case which will find its way into our case notes section shortly with a short summary case note but it involves two sets of proceedings, one between Mr Tchenguiz and others against Mrs Imerman nee Tchenguiz and the other between Mr and Mrs Imerman.
More prosaically, we have seen the publication of new CPR rules about Electronic Disclosure to be known as Practice Direction 31B: Disclosure of Electronic Documents CPRO (10) 13. Comment and a link to the new rules will be in our resources section in due course.
For the time being, note that, unless the Court orders otherwise, the new rules apply to litigation commenced on or after 1st October 2010 and that what we have recently become accustomed to calling the ESI Questionnaire is renamed the Electronic Documents Questionnaire! The Rules Committee have a passion for giving new names to concepts just as we have got used to the old ones!
Finally, two serious messages: One a press release about Equivio Relevance, a tool which our clients are starting to use. See Squire Sanders Equivio Relevance press release from Equivio
Secondly an interesting article on spoliation in New Jersey Law: Proven Methods to Prevent Spoliation of Online Data . I was persuaded to draw attention to this as it contains a reference to a case decided by Judge Shira Scheindlin (of Zubulake fame) concerning the Pension Committee of the University of Montreal Pension Plan. Judge Sheindlin is to US Smart e-Discovery as Judge Simon Brown is to the subject in this country.
As I say, keeping up with developments is a problem at the best of time and it is worse when they all come in a rush in August! I will return to these topics in due course.