Defendants Want Social Media, Plaintiffs Want E-Discovery
- By : Cbh
- Category : E-discovery, Social Media
In civil lawsuits, particularly those involving individuals as plaintiffs and businesses as defendants, lawyers on either side are turning to new discovery tools that they can use against their opponent without much fear of retribution. Specifically, a defendant seeks a plaintiff’s social media. Embarrassing and risky for the plaintiff, perhaps, but likely the defendant-corporation has no social media to be concerned about.
On the other hand, the plaintiff can serve e-discovery on the defendant: in that situation, the individual plaintiff likely has little to none but the defendant corporation is now scrambling with retention policies, multiple devices, and gobs of data.
Are social media and e-discovery treated the same by the courts?
This article, Defendants Want Social Media, Plaintiffs Want E-Discovery, from the April 2013 Palm Beach Bar Bulletin discusses these (developing) legal trends.