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Sean O’Shea: Tips for Paralegals and Litigation Support Professionals – December 2019

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12/1/2019: D.S.C.: Fact Summaries Withheld Despite Faulty Metadata Review
District of South Carolina allows fact summaries to be withheld even though some determined to be dupes without word by word comparison.

12/2/2019: Java script to convert xls to csv
Simply drag a .js file into a folder, click it, and it will batch convert from xls to csv.

12/3/2019: How to exclude what you’re not searching for
A caret can be used in Regex to indicate which characters should not be returned in search results.

[^A-z\s]

. . . will only find numbers.

12/4/2019: Powershell script to split up .csv file
This can be used to break up a large Excel file that won’t open in Excel.

12/5/019: Head’s up! Check your Python modules
There is an imposter version of the popular library dateutill which is called python3-dateutil with a one ‘1’ at the end instead of a lowercase L, ‘l’.

12/6/2019: reStructuredText
you can convert python reStructuredText (.rst) files with a Chrome app.

12/7/2019: Fix for when Windows Media Player Plays Audio but not Video
If Windows Media Player plays the audio but not the video of a mpeg file in Windows 10, VLC should be able to play the video successfully.\

12/8/2019: N.D. Cal.: TRO on CTO for lock out of AWS.
The Court issued a temporary restraining order preventing a Chief Technology Officer from altering source code for Ambitrace, software for tracing sensitive data.

12/9/2019: Bankers Box Ban?
FedEx may reject bankers boxes with openings or those weighing more than 30 pounds.

12/10/2019: Get Smaller, Faster Printing PDFs with Adobe ClearScan
The ClearScan OCR tool creates custom fonts rather than invisible text overlain on images for smaller text searchable files.

12/11/2019: Michigan Court of Appeals: No Bad Faith for Overwriting Interrogation Video
Overwriting of interrogation video by police was found not to be in bad faith by Michigan Court of Appeals, because it was a routine practice.

12/12/2019: Generate X number of entries for values listed with a total count
If you have a spreadsheet listing values (one of each kind) in one column, and a count (‘X’) for those values in an adjacent column, you can generate X number of multiple entries in another column for each value.

12/13/2019: New Rule of Federal Criminal Procedure Points to Guidelines for ESI Production
The notes to the new Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16.1 recommend JETWG;s ‘Recommendations for Electronically Store Information (ESI) Discovery Production in Federal Criminal Cases’ as a ESI production guide.

12/15/2019: Javascript to extract email addresses from multiple PDFs
I tested the script and it successfully extracted email addresses from two PDFs.

12/16/2019: Blank page with an OFFENDING COMMAND at the end of your hard copy of a PDF
if you get a blank page at the end of a pdf print-out with an error message referring to an offending command, try disabling the postscript pass through in the advanced settings for the printer.

12/17/2019: District of South Dakota: Forensic Examination Order Granted Where One Month Passes Between Subpoena and IT Email Review
D.S.D. would not require the production of a preservation letter because spoliation was not proven, but it did require the production of documents about the preservation letter because affidavits not sufficiently detailed.

12/18/2019: ACEDS E-Discovery IQ Test
Hint: Not all TAR tools begin with a SME reviewing a seed set.

12/19/2019: Each Emoji Has a Unicode
The standard smiley face emoji appears slightly different across platforms: Apple, Google, Facebook, Windows, Twitter, JoyPixels (an open source emoji designer); Samsung; and Gmail.  Softbank, DoCoMo and KDDI are Japanese mobile phone providers.  All are assigned the unicode 1F600

12/20/2019: How to Add File Extensions with Bulk Rename Utility
To add an extension to all files in a folder with Bulk rename utility enter the regular expression: (.+) in the Match box, and then \1.pdf in the Replace b

12/21/2019: Your Recipient May Not See Your☺As You Do
Emojis entered in one platform will not be displayed the same way in another platform.

12/22/2019: Getting around the 255 character file path limit in Windows 10
A change in registry editor can allow you to exceed the 255 character file path limit in Win 10.

12/23/2019: M.D. Pa.: Departing from Sedona Produces More Heat Than Light
“The parties’ decision to pursue two different and unilateral approaches to resolve this discovery dispute then compounded rather than eliminated these discovery shortcomings.”  Lawson v. Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stories, No. 1:17-CV-1266, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 219687, at *18 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 2, 2019)

12/24/2019: E.D. Pa.: Expert to Study if French Blocking Statute Applies for ESI in NY Relativity Databases
The Court cited the Sedona Conference’s Working Group 6 standards on cross border discovery as an important authority guiding its decision.

12/25/2019: Unicode Utility
Unicode Utility will help you insert any unicode character in any application.

12/26/2019: FileMaker Pro
FileMaker Pro helps users without programming skills create custom applications.

12/27/2019: Drill Down for Detail in Pivot Tables
You can drill down in a pivot table in Excel to get the rows from the data range used for any one value.

12/28/2019: Data Can Be Recovered From Re-Formatted External Hard Drives with EaseUS
The free trial version of EaseUS will preview lost files that can be recovered, but you need to buy a license to actually begin recovering files.  This does however let you know if there’s something to recover.

12/29/2019: Supreme Court of Wyoming: No Brady Obligation to Search for Buried Data
“To charge prosecutors with knowledge of exculpatory evidence buried in the computer databases of institutions that collect and store vast amounts of digitized data would be an unreasonable extension of the Brady rule.”  Byerly v. State, 2019 Wyo. LEXIS 132, *32 (Wyo. Dec. 27, 2019).Wyo. LEXIS 132 (Wyo. Dec. 27, 2019

Sean O'Shea on Email
Sean O'Shea
Litigation Paralegal
Sean O’Shea began working as a litigation support analyst at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP in 1998, near the dawn of the electronic discovery era. From assisting clients with the implementation of information governance policies, to conducting electronic presentations for attorneys at trials, he has been involved in all aspects of litigation support work. Sean is a Relativity Certified Administrator and an ACEDS Certified E-Discovery Specialist. He’s currently employed as a litigation paralegal in New York City, and continues to advise attorneys on legal technology. Look for a new tip on each night on www.litigationsupporttipofthenight.com.

*The views expressed in this blog are those of the owner and do not reflect the views or opinions of the owner’s employer. All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. This policy is subject to change at any time. The owner is not an attorney, and nothing posted on this site should be construed as legal advice. Litigation Support Tip of the Night does not provide confirmation that any e-discovery technique or conduct is compliant with legal, regulatory, contractual or ethical requirements.

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