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The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges confronting organizations in responding to the recent electronic discovery (e‐discovery) amendments to the US federal rules of civil procedure. Failure to comply with these rules, even unintentionally, can have significant adverse legal consequences for parties of the lawsuit. The vast majority of information and data is electronic and stored in numerous files and on a variety of media. Thus, there is a critical need to better manage electronic content and implement a strategic approach to accommodate new rules, legislation, and ever‐changing technology. In response, the authors provide recommendations for enterprise‐wide e‐discovery readiness.

To investigate the legal theory for e‐discovery, the authors examine precedent‐setting legal cases for the purpose of providing managerial recommendations for developing and implementing a comprehensive policy for compliance and litigation purposes.

According to the authors' evaluation of the amendments and applicable case law, the new rules make clear that electronic information and data are discoverable, and that failure to protect and store in a retrievable format may lead to adverse legal consequences.

To better prepare for the duties imposed by the e‐discovery amendments, the authors recommend the formation of an enterprise‐wide multi‐functional electronically stored information Discovery Team to develop, implement, and periodically review a comprehensive electronic records management policy and procedures for compliance and litigation purposes.

The authors take into consideration the dearth of information systems literature addressing the critical need to better manage electronic content and to implement an enterprise‐wide strategic approach to accommodate the requirements of e‐discovery, or face costly consequences.

For over two hundred years, our nation’s legal system has been based on the “American Rule” ‐ with each party bearing its own litigation costs. As the Supreme Court noted in 1975, this distinctly American tradition is “deeply rooted in our history and in congressional policy, and it is not for us to invade the legislature’s province by redistributing litigation costs…” Not surprisingly, the founders of our legal system did not anticipate the extent to which e‐mail would come to dominate our professional and personal lives. Experts estimate that 30 billion e‐mail messages are currently are being sent every day ‐ or an average of five e‐mails per day for every person on the planet.

In light of the current investigations related to possible conflicts of interest involving Wall Street stock analysts, no general counsel at a securities firm needs to be reminded of e‐mail’s growing importance in litigation and regulatory investigations. Merrill Lynch paid a $100 million settlement to the State of New York based, in significant part, on damaging evidence culled from the e‐mail of its analysts, including its renowned Internet stock analyst Henry Blodget. New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer issued additional subpoenas to most of the major Wall Street firms, and parallel investigations are underway by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night:

The purpose of this paper is to examine the myriad ways record‐keeping can affect the course and outcome of products liability litigation. The examination includes an overview of the civil jury system in the USA, as well as an analysis of the benefits gained from instituting quality concepts and principles regarding the creation, management, storage and protection of quality‐related documents. Frequently the “star witness” in a products liability lawsuit is not a witness at all – it is a document. The written record a company generates plays a critical role in presenting a case to the jury in the event of litigation. With regard to retaining and storing company records, serious legal problems arise when documents are lost, damaged or destroyed without adequate explanation. Accordingly, embracing and implementing quality concepts and principles with regard to record‐keeping provides numerous rewards in the event of litigation.

The purpose of this research project is to identify the legal and security issues, risks and barriers to the uptake of communication and document management technologies by the construction industry. Previous research suggests that the construction industry, especially in Australia, has been reluctant to adopt technology on a broad scale due to a range of legal uncertainties. The purpose of this paper is to explain the relevant legal issues and risks and to suggest possible solutions for legally compliant electronic project administration in the construction industry.

This paper is based on research undertaken for the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation (CRCCI) Research Project 2005‐025‐A, “Electronic Contract Administration – Legal and Security Issues”. The outcomes from the research to date include a literature review and several case studies. The research project will ultimately produce a set of recommendations for secure and legally compliant electronic project administration.

It is apparent that, if the uncertainties associated with electronic project administration remain unresolved, then the practical consequences for parties using electronic project administration tools may be serious. On a more general level, these uncertainties will contribute to a reduced willingness by the construction industry to take advantage of modern communication technologies.

This research contributes to the need for greater clarity and knowledge of the legal issues and risks of electronic project administration in the construction industry.

This chapter reflects upon the main reasons for the universal, deep, and long-lasting impact of the Mexican neozapatista movement during the 25 years of its public life, recuperating not only the immediate reasons but the reasons linked with process in the middle and in the long term. We argue that the neozapatista movement changed the correlation des forces in Mexico in 1994, opening the transition of all indigenous Latin American movements to pass from a defensive and marginal position, to a new offensive and protagonic position. In the general context after 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Mexican neozapatism restores hope in social protest and social fight of all the anticapitalistic and antisystemic movements all over the world. With the above basis, it is possible to understand that this Mexican neozapatism was able to define the general agenda of the main demands and targets that were vindicated for the antisystemic movements during the last 25 years, including all the movements of 2011, such as the Spanish Indignados, or the so-called Arab Spring, or Occupy Wall Street, or even the current French movement of the Gilets Jeaunes, among many others. It explains partially the real function of a kind of “avant-garde” of the antisystemic movements all over the world, playing by the Mexican neozapatismo in the last five lusters and even today.

To elucidate issues involved in the problem of scale, in particular the relations, analytical and dialectical, among first-person experiences of theorist and theorist’s object-complex of individual actor, group, society, motives and causes, intended and unintended effects, and so forth, as these experiences are manifest in an aesthetics of the judicial moment of perception, and enunciated as first-person accounts directly or indirectly, of third-person accounts, sometimes via explicit but usually via virtual or even vicarious second-person accounting practices.

Discussion begins with some classical formulations by neo-Kantian theorists (Simmel, Durkheim, Weber) regarding relations of “individual and society.” Brief citations of various twentieth century responses to the problem of scale follow. Attention then becomes more intensively focused on the basic problem of first-person experience and accounts with respect to the problem of scale, using Coleman’s “foundations” work as guidepost for navigating issues of effects of cognition, consciousness, and action in still mostly obscure processes of aggregation. This leads to explication of the thesis of “impossible individuality,” in present-day theoretical contexts and in the context of post-Kantian romanticism, with special attention to Hölderlin and the feeling/knowing dialectic, Benjamin’s treatment of temporality with respect to metrics of history, and the question what it means to “theorize with intent.”

The discussion ends with some tentative resolutions and several lacunae and aporia which are integral to the current face of the problem of scale (i.e., processes of aggregation, etc.).

The discussion builds upon the work of many others, with first-person illustrations.