Irrational fear of sanctions and spotty tech familiarity have conditioned lawyers to over-preserve, says e-discovery special master Craig Ball, but there are options to “right size” the approach.Visit Law Technology News

Former Prudential Life Insurance employees have lost a bid to remove a special master from their suit accusing the company of bribing their lawyers to keep their employment claims out of court. A New Jersey appellate court denied an emergent interlocutory appeal of the appointment of former U.S. Magistrate Judge William Hunt to oversee discovery.

There’s so much e-mail in e-discovery it’s easy to lose sight of its inherent simplicity, says EDD special master Craig Ball. It isn’t just geek stuff, it’s lawyer stuff, too. E-mail is really as simple as a postcard because everything in e-mail is plain text no matter what was transmitted.

The special master appointed to handle discovery in a mammoth fraud and bribery suit against Prudential Life Insurance has agreed to reduce his fees, even as the plaintiffs lawyers are trying to dispense with him altogether. William Hunt said in a letter to the parties that he would cut his hourly rate from $450 to $350

Chevron’s Gibson Dunn attorneys, who successfully fought for access to outtakes from the documentary “Crude,” about the 17-year-old Ecuadorean environmental suit against their client, have asserted they have found evidence in the footage of plaintiffs lawyer Steven Donziger and other plaintiffs experts conspiring with Richard Cabrera — the Ecuadorean special master appointed to determine Chevron’s damages — to influence Cabrera’s report even before he was officially named to his position.