Taxation of Electronic Discovery Costs, Recovering Processing Fees


recoupListen to Karl Schieneman, Founder and President of Review Less and Predictive Coding Expert, talk with Mark Austrian, an e-discovery attorney and partner at Kelley Drye & Warren and the author of an article published in June 2012 called Taxation of Costs and Offer of Judgment published by For the Defense, a DRI publication.

Today we have an interesting show on the taxation of E-Discovery costs. This issue was brought to everyone’s attention last year in the Race Tires of America case from the 3rd Circuit. In this case, the trial court originally imposed a hefty $300,000 bill on the party who had their case dismissed, in order to recoup E-Discovery costs. This award was substantially reduced on appeal but some of the costs were still awarded.

Given the skyrocketing vendor costs in E-Discovery, this area has been one which E-Discovery lawyers have been talking about over the past year. There is a split among courts on awarding E-Discovery costs to the winning party. During this podcast, we discuss the argument for awarding costs to attempt to recoup processing fees,  as well as how to frame this argument in your case. We will also go through the technical steps to preserve an argument for awarding costs in case a decision is made to try and recover costs at the end of the case.

Recorded 07/11/2012