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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Metadata: Now with ethics
The Oklahoma Bar Journal has a recent article by Jim Calloway entitled, "Metadata - What Is It and What Are My Ethical Duties?." There's also an introduction (and follow-up) on his personal blog. From the blog:
Metadata still remains a huge and often misunderstood topic. Since my article Metadata - What Is It and What Are My Ethical Duties? was published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal on November 8, 2008, I've already had several people contact me and say "Wow, I didn't know anything at all about that. Thanks." When you write something for publication, you want everyone to read it. But this is something that I believe everyone needs to read and understand, whether you agree with my point of view or not. The legal ethics piece may be particular to lawyers, but everyone needs to know about metadata. Now that the article is online, take a moment to e-mail this link to lawyers you think might not be aware of the legal ethics issues relating to metadata.
My own understanding of metadata, as it applies to a law office, and its uses - good and bad - is still evolving. Over the last couple months I asked three lawyers what they knew about metadata. None of them had any idea what is is. I also asked one legal secretary what she knew about it. She had only a vague idea of what is, knew it was a concern, and was pretty sure none of the lawyers in her firm were aware of if. Obviously, this is something that people need to get educated about.
In the meantime, if you're using WordPerfect, here are some links that may help:
* A white paper from Corel entitled, "Minimizing Metadata in WordPerfect 12" (16 page PDF). That should be good for WP12, WPX3, and WPX4.
* Here's an old Law.com article by Howard Bashman entitled, "Redact This: Preserving Secrets on Appeal in the Digital Age." To get a good idea what all the hullabaloo is all about:
In other words, while three 7th Circuit judges were considering whether the plaintiff should be able to keep her identity secret in the litigation, that issue had essentially become moot months earlier when the 7th Circuit clerk's office posted online the woman's Brief for Appellant, which revealed her actual name for all to see. Surprisingly, neither the appellate judges nor counsel for the parties noticed that the plaintiff's name had been disclosed online via the Brief for Appellant posted at the 7th Circuit's Web site until after that court had issued its ruling on appeal.
* If you don't know what to do, you can always "Turn Off Metadata" (works in recent versions of WordPerfect).
• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 12:46 AM
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