Avoiding Objections to Privilege Logs: Criteria for Inclusion, Descriptions, Format Options, and Technology Tools
Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Class Action and Other Litigation
- event Date
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will provide attendees with practical guidance on preparing and producing below budget privilege logs that will not draw valid objections. The panelists will discuss the key components of a log, negotiating less onerous logging requirements, metadata, categorical logs, identifying flaws in adversaries' privilege logs, and how technology can reduce cost, improve quality, and prevent privilege waiver.
Mr. Frankel provides e-discovery counseling to clients and colleagues facing the ever-increasing legal and technological complexities that permeate this area of law. He has over a decade of legal experience managing e-discovery projects, both large and small. Before entering the legal profession, Mr. Frankel spent 14 years as a software engineer and database designer for Fortune 100 companies, a background that enables him to address the technical intricacies of electronic document discovery.
Ms. Alunni is an associate in the Health Sciences Department, resident in the Philadelphia office. She graduated from Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law where she completed her J.D. and served as a managing editor for the Drexel Law Review. Brianna also earned her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Temple University.
Unless the parties stipulate otherwise, Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(A) mandates that when withholding an otherwise discoverable document on the grounds of privilege or other protection, responding parties must assert the basis for withholding the document and provide sufficient information to assess that claim. But within those general requirements lies substantial room for interpretation. This webinar will share best practices for generating logs that satisfy governing obligations without engaging in a costly, fully manual exercise prone to error.
The best place to start is well before the first privilege log entry is drafted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f)(3)(D) expressly contemplates agreements on "issues about claims of privilege" as part of the meet-and-confer process, and parties are advised to take advantage of this opportunity to exempt whole categories of documents from logging.
Jumping ahead, counsel should serve a privilege log only after a thorough quality control screening to identify third parties that could cause a privilege waiver. Diligent opposing counsel will scrutinize privilege logs closely.
Listen as the panel discusses these and many other strategies for avoiding costly privilege log mistakes that frustrate courts and sidetrack parties from the merits.
- Introduction (purpose/importance of privilege logs)
- Governing rules
- Key privilege log components
- Negotiating less onerous/narrower logging requirements
- Redactions
- Partially privileged documents
- Email threads
- Post-complaint communications with outside counsel
- Privilege log types
- Traditional (document by document)
- Categorical
- Automated/metadata
- QC strategies
- Ways to leverage technology
- Recent cases on privilege log objections and sanctions/waiver
The panel will review these and other issues:
- What categories of documents should ordinarily be negotiated out of privilege logs?
- How can technology be deployed to efficiently create internally consistent privilege logs?
- When are metadata and/or categorical privilege logs appropriate?
- What best practices can be gleaned from recent cases, particularly when responding to objections and seeking to avoid waiver or other sanctions?
