Metadata: Legal and Ethical Challenges
Avoiding Information Risks With Various File Types, Electronic Redactions, Location-Tracking, “The Cloud” and eDiscovery
Recording of a 90-minute CLE webinar with Q&A
This CLE course will prepare counsel to manage the ethical and malpractice risks of metadata. The panel will introduce the latest metadata threats and outline best practices for controlling and managing metadata and meeting related ethical and legal obligations.
Outline
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Day-to-day metadata issues for lawyers and others
- Definitions
- Demonstrations of file-system data and embedded data
- Track changes
- Mitigation—scrubbing/cleaning and mining via same software
- Redactions
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Newer, evolving threats
- The “Mobile Gap”—smartphones, tablets and email via web access
- Trails left by social media and webmail accounts, mobile devices and wi-fi networks
- Lawyer ethics as to inadvertent disclosures day-to-day and in litigation
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E-Discovery—exchange of client-created files in native format with metadata intact
- Overview of law as to preservation and discoverability
- Inadvertent privilege waivers, including the Fed R. Civ. Pro’s claw-back procedures and Fed. Rule of Evid. 502’s protections
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key questions:
- What can companies and counsel do to reduce or eliminate the risk of inadvertent disclosures, particularly when using track changes, converting to pdfs or redacting documents?
- What ethical obligations does a practitioner have upon receipt from opposing counsel of documents that include revealing metadata?
- How are state bars, bar associations and courts treating inadvertent disclosure of metadata?
- What are the key legal and computer forensics issues that arise in eDiscovery when client-created files are exchanged in native formats?
Following the speaker presentations, you'll have an opportunity to get answers to your specific questions during the interactive Q&A.
Faculty

Robert D. Brownstone
Technology & eDiscovery Counsel
Fenwick & West
Mr. Brownstone advises clients on information-security, data-privacy, electronic discovery, electronic information... | Read More
Mr. Brownstone advises clients on information-security, data-privacy, electronic discovery, electronic information management, retention/destruction policies, workplace technology-use policies and social-media rewards and risks. A nationwide advisor, speaker, writer and adjunct law professor on many law-and-technology issues, he is frequently quoted in the press as a resource on electronic information.
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Perry L. Segal
President
Charon Solutions
He is one of the most prominent voices in California on the intersection of law and technology. His specialties... | Read More
He is one of the most prominent voices in California on the intersection of law and technology. His specialties include both civil and criminal litigation, electronic data discovery and electronically stored information, enterprise management, disaster recovery, and compliance. He also maintains a solo law practice, Charon Law, SP.
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