Extract from Kelly Twigger’s article “CaseoftheWeek Episode 108: Is an individual Slack Message Considered a Document under FRCP”
In Episode 108 we cover a key decision in ediscovery case law on collaboration platforms because of its ruling on how the court treated a conversation thread under Rule 34’s definition of a document and the context required for production. Read on to see whether a message on Slack is a document itself, or what the producing party was required to provide and focus on the takeaways provided from CEO Kelly Twigger.
Introduction
Welcome to this week’s episode of our Case of the Week series brought to you by eDiscovery Assistant in partnership with ACEDS. eDiscovery Assistant is a practical and strategic resource designed to help lawyers and legal professionals supporting them to understand and leverage the value of ESI.
My name is Kelly Twigger. I am the CEO and founder at eDiscovery Assistant, as well as the principal at ESI Attorneys. If you haven’t yet had a chance to grab our 2022 Case Law Report, download a copy of that for your perusal.
This week’s decision is an important one because it provides a bit more clarity around Rule 34’s requirement to produce documents as it pertains to collaboration tools, text messages, and Slack as well as Teams data. All of those are discussed in this decision, although the actual motion to compel focuses on Slack data. We’ve discussed multiple times on Case of the Week that Slack, Teams, instant messaging, and text messages are all becoming very prominent sources of ESI, and that planning for understanding them and knowing how to deal with them in discovery is crucial.
