Introduction

Over the course of two years, the Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a series of opinions in that helped provide much needed clarity on the topic of discovery of electronically stored information. These opinions, entered in a case captioned Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, include a discussion of the obligations imposed on litigants who maintain electronic information and the considerable sanctions a court may impose on litigants who do not follow the electronic discovery rules.

Judge Scheindlin's discussion of the severe, case-changing electronic discovery penalties sent shock waves across the legal industry and beyond. It seemed to confirm what conventional wisdom had taught: electronic discovery involves a complicated maze of unanswered questions with potentially disastrous consequences. Zubulake made the message seem even more clear: a case can be lost and a client's exposure can skyrocket because of a lawyer's innocent ignorance and mistakes in electronic discovery.

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