Extract from Cat Casey’s article “When eDiscovery meets Pop Culture”
Few things in this world give me as big a chuckle as when the Netflix show I am bingeing or the Movie I am watching has a subtle, or not so subtle, reference to eDiscovery. In those moments, my never-ending quest to demystify electronically stored information and all things legal technology seems within reach or at least closer to mainstream understanding!
Almost two decades ago, when I first dipped my big toe into eDiscovery, trying to explain to my parents or a friend what the heck I did was challenging to say the least! When even some senators thought the internet and cloud computing consisted of interconnected tubes and Meta had more to do with physics than data, it was no surprise people remained baffled! But times have changed and everything from Metadata to Legal Artificial Intelligence has gone more mainstream!
Captain Jack, Aquaman & Metadata oh My!
Televised high profile trials are far from new, but, not since the OJ Simpson trial has the country tuned in en masse and discussed at length a single case at this level. It should be no surprise given that the parties involved in this high-profile defamation suit are bonafide Hollywood A-lister and frequent pirate, Johnny Depp and his Hollywood starlet ex-wife and occasional sea goddess wife Amber heard.
If you go beyond the cheeky twitter hashtags (#amberturd) and the substance of the case itself, what caught my eye was the in depth analysis of things like chain of custody for certain digital evidence, presence (or lack thereof) of metadata for digital images provided to the opposing counsel during the eDiscovery process, and the overall discussion of the authenticity and admissibility of various forms of electronically stored information.
