litsupport summary for the week ending on 6/15/08

A lot of important and useful information is posted to litsupport each week. The following is a distilled summary, in the form of questions and answers.

Q. What is an easy way to create 2MB PDFs? Some courts will not accept PDF files that exceed 2MB.
A. Here are the possible ways: (a) if you can export your electronic files to PDF, it will result in smaller PDF's; (b) if scanning, select the lowest dots per inch (dpi) resolution (such as 150 dpi) black & white for straight-text documents and gray scale for documents with tones, and avoid color; (c) A-PDF Size Splitter; (d) zip the pdf file and span the zip into pieces of an acceptable size, the court will unzip the main file and it rebuilds the original file from the pieces; (e) PDF Optimizing utility within Acrobat Pro; (f) pdfDocs Desktop; (g) build images in IPRO as PDFs and set size limit; (h) if everything else fails, you may have to print and submit paper documents :).

Q. What is the future of Bates Numbers used in litigation?
A. This is a ubiquitous question, so at the risk of making a mistake, let us summarize the opinions: (a) for internal reference, use DocId and hash values; for production to the opposing side, use Bates numbers, especially if you want to refer to pages, and this is the practice preferred by lawyers; in evidence use Exhibit or Attachment; (b) in cases where stamping is still required look for something that is the least physically destructive to the human body and get the trick of waving it properly to do paper, especially in a confined space; (c) Mr. Bates died many years ago. It is time that we buried him; (d) Bates terminology will never die.

Q. How to deal with encrypted or password-protected documents in EDD processing?
A. Your best bet is to ask (in writing) the responsible attorney on a case by case (or client standard policy) basis BEFORE you process the data how s/he wants you to handle encrypted ESI, and document what you do; (b) if the client is giving you their password, note the date and time it was received and who had the information; (c) it may be a standard procedure to break passwords and document that, - but keep that type of information even more confidential.

This summary from the Litsupport Group postings created by the wonderful and talented members of the group has been culled by Mark Kerzner (mkerzner@top8.biz) and edited by Aline Bernstein (aline.bernstein@gmail.com).