Governor Schwarzenegger Signs California’s Electronic Discovery Act

A version of the 2006 FRCP amendments regarding electronically stored information (ESI) has made its way to California. While Governor Schwarzenegger previously vetoed another version of California's Electronic Discovery Act for budgetary reasons, last night it appeared that even the state's budget woes were no match for the power of ESI in the courts. The Governor signed the new Act yesterday and it is effective immediately. According to the Act:

The Civil Discovery Act requires any documents produced in response to an inspection demand to be produced as they are kept in the usual course of business, or be organized and labeled to correspond with the categories in the demand. The documents are to be produced on the date described above or as agreed by the parties pursuant to an extension.

To view the Electronic Discovery Act in its entirety, click here. The bottom line is that in this day and age, e-discovery requests in court cases are commonplace. Quite frequently, the "smoking gun" evidence in many corporate cases is found in electronically stored records like emails. Now more than ever, organizations of all sizes need to be prepared to process and produce electronic records in a short amount of time. The message is clear - the federal courts and an increasing number of state courts expect electronic records to be just as accessible and producible as their hard copy ancestors.

So, have you heard the one about the lawyer and the "missing" emails? Me either, but I'm guessing it's coming ...