Question for lawyers about subpoenas for electronic data

[MadImmortalMan]

Occasionally, I have to do some discovery on digital information/email because of legal activity involving my employer. A couple of times these have been extraordinarily obnoxious ones in the form of "Provide all emails sent to or from persons A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J between January 1st 2006 and December 31st 2011. These emails should include but not be limited to topics concerning the following: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and blah. Provide by tomorrow at 10am."

Is such stuff common? Do the people who write these up realize that I can't just run a sql query and send them the results? I mean, I'm sure I could just dump the mailboxes of those people to disk and hand it over, but I don't think my employer would like that approach.

Also, have any of you admin guys had to do this like I do? If so, are there any good tools for Exchange to make it easier?

[Caliga]

  Do we actually have any server admins around here?  I don't think we do, except maybe Wags.

[The Minsky Moment]

Is such stuff common?

Yes.  Routine.

Do the people who write these up realize that I can't just run a sql query and send them the results?

A lot of the time no.  In fact I'd you say "sql" their eyes will glaze over.

[ulmont]

Is such stuff common?

Yes, although I'd note that while you may get it on a "tomorrow at 10am" basis, the lawyers almost always get it with 30+ days to respond.

Also very common is to say "that's way too much and too burdensome; what search terms can we agree to run against the mailbox to reduce false positives?"

A lot of the time no.  In fact I'd you say "sql" their eyes will glaze over.

If you say "sql" they think "Transformers 2."

[CountDeMoney]

Is such stuff common?

We have two guys that do nothing but that all the time.  Everything is discoverable.

[Ideologue]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

[Barrister]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

That's why civil litigation sucks.

[dps]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

That's why civil litigation sucks.

Surely you have to do it some in criminal cases as well, no?

[The Brain]

lol subpoenas

[Ideologue]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

That's why civil litigation sucks.

Surely you have to do it some in criminal cases as well, no?

You have to do discovery in every (contested) criminal case, but criminal cases with hundreds of thousands of documents are pretty rare--and the police handle that in their investigation.

The only discovery I ever did involved a lot of boilerplate requests, and, like, ten documents, most of which were a different form saying the same shit.

[CountDeMoney]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

Piper DLA had no problems paying my brother-in-law $126,000+ his first year out of law school to do that all day.
And you do it for free.

[Ideologue]

When?  A BigLaw associate working as a document monkey in the past decade seems wrong.  They contract that out to doc review services, and bill for five to ten times what they pay (usually $20-50/hr, depending on market and language skills, but sometimes more and sometimes less).  Now, he may've liaised with the staffing agency and done QC on the contract attorneys, which more or less amounts to the same thing, but afaik it wouldn't be the length and breadth of his job (because he's busy drafting memos no one reads, and maybe writing motions every now and again).

If they were paying him $126k plus a bonus to plow through docs like a $20/hr temp, that seems senseless, because it's neither training him to do anything more important nor as cost effective as just contracting with an agency.

[stjaba]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

Piper DLA had no problems paying my brother-in-law $126,000+ his first year out of law school to do that all day.
And you do it for free.

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

Piper DLA had no problems paying my brother-in-law $126,000+ his first year out of law school to do that all day.
And you do it for free.

Those days are over. These days, a lot of that stuff is being outsourced. One prestigious international law firm, Orrick, actually has a branch office in Wheeling, West Virginia where the attorneys do nothing but document review. Unlike the good old days, the Wheeling branch attorneys who do nothing but document review make 60-70k a year. One hand, I could't imagine anything more boring than being a professional document reviewer. On the other, its' better than nothing. And the sad thing is, while some of the Wheeling attorneys went to shitty schools, at least one guy went to Georgetown.   

This is the website: http://www.orrick.com/lawyers/ByOffice.asp?ID=WH (notice how the office is called the "Global Operations Center Office."

And the other interesting tidbit? Check out this guy's job description: http://www.orrick.com/lawyers/Bio.asp?ID=235319

"Matthew Sebastian is an eDiscovery career associate with the Litigation Group.  His main focus is the use of analytics tools to reduce the burden of eDiscovery for clients. For example, he creates queries using relevant search terms to focus the review process in a direction that is highly likely to produce responsive documents.  Mr. Sebastian also acts as a team lead overseeing groups of attorneys during the eDiscovery review process."

Sounds like anyone proficient with Google could do his job.

[CountDeMoney]

If they were paying him $126k plus a bonus to plow through docs like a $20/hr temp, that seems senseless, because it's neither training him to do anything more important nor as cost effective as just contracting with an agency.

You seem to think BigLaw would be considerate of a client's billable hours by using contract temps for that sort of thing.  That's positively adorable.

[dps]

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

Piper DLA had no problems paying my brother-in-law $126,000+ his first year out of law school to do that all day.
And you do it for free.

And going through that shit is what a huge percentage of employed "lawyers" do these days.

click
click
click
click
click

BANG

Piper DLA had no problems paying my brother-in-law $126,000+ his first year out of law school to do that all day.
And you do it for free.

Those days are over. These days, a lot of that stuff is being outsourced. One prestigious international law firm, Orrick, actually has a branch office in Wheeling, West Virginia where the attorneys do nothing but document review. Unlike the good old days, the Wheeling branch attorneys who do nothing but document review make 60-70k a year. One hand, I could't imagine anything more boring than being a professional document reviewer. On the other, its' better than nothing. And the sad thing is, while some of the Wheeling attorneys went to shitty schools, at least one guy went to Georgetown.   

This is the website: http://www.orrick.com/lawyers/ByOffice.asp?ID=WH (notice how the office is called the "Global Operations Center Office."

And the other interesting tidbit? Check out this guy's job description: http://www.orrick.com/lawyers/Bio.asp?ID=235319

"Matthew Sebastian is an eDiscovery career associate with the Litigation Group.  His main focus is the use of analytics tools to reduce the burden of eDiscovery for clients. For example, he creates queries using relevant search terms to focus the review process in a direction that is highly likely to produce responsive documents.  Mr. Sebastian also acts as a team lead overseeing groups of attorneys during the eDiscovery review process."

Sounds like anyone proficient with Google could do his job.

OTOH, the cost of living in Wheeling is probably low enough that $60-70K there is roughly equal to $120K in many major cities.

Though, when I say that I'd rather be back in WV instead of here in NC, I don't have Wheeling in mind.