Photo of Andrea Donovan Napp

Andrea Donovan Napp is chair of the firm's Electronic Discovery and Information Management Team. In addition to e-discovery, Andrea focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation, business torts, and market conduct cases, representing businesses, municipalities, and individuals in various jurisdictions. As chair of the Electronic Discovery and Information Management Team, Andrea coordinates Robinson+Cole's use of the latest technology, such as Concordance, CaseMap, LAW, LiveNote, and various Web-based platforms, to achieve maximum efficiency and compliance for our clients. Andrea has significant experience in all aspects of e-discovery, including document retention and data management planning, development of defensible collection policies, and management of large scale reviews and production. She has managed several large, sophisticated e-discovery projects in government investigations and private litigation. Notably, she led United Technologies Corporation's privilege review in the Department of Justice's antitrust review of the largest-ever aerospace merger. She routinely counsels clients on the development of data retention policies, legal hold practices, and e-discovery response plans. Read her rc.com bio here.

Following an election season characterized by missing emails, private servers and personal laptops, and amidst pervasive allegations of Russian cybercrimes, outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson issued an exit memo outlining the cybersecurity strides made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the Obama administration.  Despite acknowledging “tangible progress,” Johnson warned that

Earlier this year, I predicted that 2016 would be a year of increased focus on e-discovery from cloud-based sources and postulated that many organizations would demand better e-discovery solutions and increased cooperation from cloud providers. Industry experts agreed. So, what can proactive companies do to ensure that their cloud providers are on board for e-discovery purposes? Much can be accomplished before the contract is even signed. For most providers, e-discovery is not their primary concern so their form agreements are unlikely to address with any degree of specificity key components that could make compliance with discovery requests smoother. While there is no one-size fits all answer, trying to get specific commitments incorporated into the provider agreement will go a long way towards streamlining compliance.
Continue Reading Considering E-Discovery in Cloud Contracts

The lament that law schools do not adequately prepare new lawyers for the actual practice of law is not a new one.  The refrain, however, seems more pronounced as the day-to-day practice of law becomes increasingly intertwined with technological concepts that have little place in most law school curricula.  This problem is particularly paramount in

After seemingly endless years of rulemaking, the first decisions applying the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have begun to trickle out. Not surprisingly, there have been no game changers to date, but early signs point to a heavy emphasis on the principles of proportionality, a concept entrenched in the Rules since the 1980s but

While 2015 will likely be remembered as the year the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were substantively overhauled to resolve many persistent issues related to e-discovery, 2016 quietly marks ten years since the Federal Rules were amended to expressly recognize, for the first time, that electronically stored information (ESI) was equally as discoverable as its

The recent amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) makes clear that document preservation is not something to be taken lightly.  Issuing a litigation hold notice is the first, crucial step in the preservation process.  A litigation hold notice is a document, usually sent by counsel, that alerts individuals likely to be in possession

This week’s tip is applicable to both individuals and businesses, and is a headache for both. Lately, it seems that everyone I talk to is lamenting about what a hassle document retention and destruction is, both personally and professionally. For good reason. Like other areas of law (such as data breach notification laws), every state

Although the legal field is not a profession known for embracing change, several developments over the past year have made it clear that even lawyers have an ethical obligation to understand the basics of modern technology.  This summer, Massachusetts became the fourteenth state to include an express duty of technological competence in its state ethics

Amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), which takes effect on December 1, 2015, authorizes courts to impose sanctions if electronically stored information (ESI) is lost because a party failed to take “reasonable steps to preserve it.” Although “reasonable steps” is a phrase that will surely be litigated and ultimately defined by the courts, the

It’s easy to get lost in the abyss of technical jargon when discussing Electronically Stored Information (ESI). However, good information governance, which is one of the cornerstones of data privacy and security, doesn’t have to be complicated. Adherence to a few simple “good housekeeping” principles will go a long way toward minimizing the creation of