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

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Sorry folks.  Litigation Support Tip of the Night is badly sleep deprived.  These tips will improve when he is no longer working on a trial.

5/28/2019: Symlinks

The mklink command will create symbolic links, or symlinks, in Windows 7, which are similar to shortcut links.

5/29/2019: ABA Formal Opinion 483 – Duty of Cybersecurity Competency

The opinion states that clients must be promptly notified of any data breach.

5/30/2019: ABA Formal Opinion 477 – remote deletion is a reasonable step

“It also may be reasonable to use commonly available methods to remotely disable lost or stolen devices, and to destroy the data contained on those devices, especially if encryption is not also being used.”

5/31/2019: Louisiana Bar on Cybersecurity for Lawyers

“sending digital files in a non-secure format could allow the inadvertent release of information a lawyer or client would not want shared by the unintentional disclosure of ‘metadata,’ which is information embedded in electronic documents.”

6/1/2019: Adobe PDF Security

LifeCycle DRM can prevent a PDF file from being copied or printed.

6/2/2019: Entering Headers and Footers for Multiple Workbooks

Use application.Dialogs(xlDialogWorkgroup). Show in the intermediate window in Visual Basic.

6/3/2019: Dell’s Annoying Touchpad Zoom

Turn off the zoom gesture.  It is sure to mess you up.

6/4/2019: NameWiz

Includes a plug-in to rename MPEGs with album and song names.

6/5/2019: Deleting multiple pictures on a worksheet

Go to Home . . . Find & Select . . . Selection Pane

6/6/2019: Pretrial Rule 17(c) Subpoenas

Most jurisdictions require the documents to be both admissible at trial, and specifically described in the subpoena.

6/7/2019: HLOOKUP – reference ranges listed in other cells

6/8/2019: D. Ore.: Permissive Instruction That Information is Damning

Judge Simon found that the defendant committed spoliation when he deleted emails and webinar recordings so he could say he did not have access to them (even though it was established that he anticipated litigation), and when he deleted a client list just before a hearing, “because it’s exactly the type of damning information that UAS wants to catch me with.”.

6/9/2019: TextMap Video Formats

The mp4 video format won’t function properly in TextMap unless additional codecs are installed.

6/10/2019: Tales of Trial

When submitting text messages as evidence at a trial, consider creating summary tables.

6/11/2019: Windows 10 hot key for file paths

In Explorer in Windows 10, if you add ‘Copy path’ to the Quick Access toolbar, you will be able to copy the full file path of any selected file  to the clipboard by pressing ALT + 3.

6/12/2019: type command to display contents of a text file

The TYPE command can be used  in Windows to display the contents of a text file.

6/13/2019: iPhone Date Stamps

When scrolling through such screenshots, note that a new datestamp should be added each time a new text is sent between two or more recipients after the beginning of a new day.

6/14/2019: W.D. Tex. Considers Motion for Sanctions Against Pepper Hamilton

“Pepper Hamilton’s choice to assert two-year-old objections in a motion for reconsideration gives the appearance that Pepper Hamilton’s objections are willfully designed to delay and complicate discovery.”

6/15/2019: S.D. Cal. Issues Rule 37 Sanctions for Incomplete Text Massage Production

“Plaintiff’s use of the Concurrent Case’s deduped text message database is no excuse for his failure to produce his own text messages.”

6/16/2019: Texas Court of Appeals Upholds Admission of Photos Taken From Defendant’s Cell Phone

Texas Court of Appeals issued a decision, Rodriguez v. State, No. 14-17-00613-CR, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 4734 (Tex. App.  June 11, 2019) in a capital murder case, which upheld a lower court’s admission of photos taken from the defendant’s cell phone.  The photos showed the defendant with items found at the crime scene, including firearms and a bandana the defendant wore as a mask in one photo.

6/17/2019: Bankr. N.D. Ohio: Bankruptcy Filing Not a Trigger

“The Court believes that the duty to preserve did not arise until after attempts to resolve the valuation of LaGroux’s interest proved unsuccessful.”

6/18/2019: EDRM Model Rule of Conduct

Professionalism; Engagement; Conflicts of Interest; Sound Process; Security and Confidentiality

6/19/2019: Windows 10 Clipboard History

Windows 10 includes an enhanced clipboard that allows users to store a history of multiple text strings or photos copied to the clipboard.

6/20/2019: FRED – Network Write Blocker

A FRED (Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device) is used to collect and analyze data from a network – it’s essentially a write blocker designed for an entire network rather than an individual PC.

6/21/2019: VM Ware Connection Options

Blast will take up the least processing power.  The RDP connection will allow you to copy and paste files and folders between the client and the remote desktop, whereas Blast and PCoIP will only allow text, and sometimes images to be copied.   PCoIP will be better suited to streaming video and audio, and works better on mobile devices.   Blast will not display images as sharply.

6/22/2019: N.D. Cal.: Loss of Time from Phishing Emails is Injury

“The information taken, however, need not be sensitive to weaponize hackers in their quest to commit further fraud or identity theft. . . That each strand of information can be painstakingly collected through a mishmash of other sources is irrelevant. Facebook is a centralized location which stores personal information for billions of users. Constructing this information from random sources bit by bit, would be hard.”

6/23/2019: Screen Capture Devices

6/24/2019: Digital Corpora’s Gov Docs

Digital Corpora, operating under a grant from the National Science Foundation, has posted electronic files here, which can be used to test forensic and electronic discovery techniques.

6/25/2019: Set Windows to Permanently Delete Files

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.

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