Minnesota Litigator focuses on news and commentary of Minnesota civil litigation but occasionally strays to related topics, reflecting the blog’s broader interest and the recognition that Minnesota litigator’s work is not restricted to the state’s borders.
All experienced litigators are painfully aware of the changes wrought in civil litigation by computer networks, e-mail, instant messaging, etc. Even relatively small litigation can — almost must — include large volumes of data these days.
Google is not single-handedly responsible, of course, but we all know that if it is not “the root cause,” it’s certainly a factor. So maybe it is appropriate that, in a major piece of litigation, Google is battling to exclude a true “smoking gun” “document” from the case, an email from an engineer, which, apparently was attorney-client privileged and confidential, except the engineer did not type the word “confidential” until late in his drafting.
And Google’s email system automatically saves drafts.