Evidentiary Issues with Text and "Chat" Messages

course

COURSE INFO

  • Available Until 5/10/2026
  • Next Class Time 10:00 AM MT
  • Duration 60 min.
  • Format MP3 Download
  • Program Code 05092024
  • MCLE Credits 1 hour(s)


Course Price: $79.00
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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Text messaging is mainstream. Clients generate virtual reams of data when they message with business partners, vendors, employees, and even public. This is a rich vein of electronically stored information that is potentially discoverable in formal litigation or pre-litigation.  Because texting is so convenient, casual and almost reflexive, the caution clients exercise in other forms of communication are often disregarded when texting, including when they text with their lawyers. This program will provide you with a practical guide to obtaining text messages, the risks of discovery in litigation, and related issues.

  • Obtaining text messages – working with mobile carriers
  • Timing – how long are texts kept and in what form?
  • Discovery issues – obtaining texts from parties or other sources
  • Issues related to encrypted messaging services
  • How strategies differ for plaintiffs and defendants

Speaker:

Stanley E. Woodward Jr. is a partner in the law firm Brand Woodward Law, where he has a broad civil litigation and white-collar criminal defense practice.  He also conducts internal corporate investigations.  He serves as an adjunct professor of law at Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, where he teaches pre-trial litigation and employment law. Before entering private practice, he served as a judicial clerk to Judge Vanessa Ruiz of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and Judges Joan Zeldon and Judge Rufus King III of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.