Quote of the Week
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Brings perspective
to digital docs mania
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Not new but worth repeating

    This is what a Pennsylvania appeals court wrote almost three years ago about getting into evidence text-messages, e mails, and other documents of our digital age: "We see no justification for constructing unique rules for admissibility of electronic communications such as instant messages; they are to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis as any other document to determine whether or not there has been an adequate foundational showing of their relevance and authenticity."
In the Interest of F.P., 878 A.2d 91 (Pa. Super. 2005).

    Although the federal courts (and many state courts) are intent on attributing qualities to electronic files that make them almost metaphysically separate and distinct from their paper counterparts, the fact remains that at bottom, a document is a document, whether it is the product of forty years of growth in a wooded area or the configuration of thousands of "I's" and "O's".

    Their preparation and the thought that goes into creating and storing them too frequently is more superficial than the making and saving of "hard" copies, and this distinction is the primary issue for you as managers.


  

3/14/08