ABA says it's ok to look at metadata
Metadata? What’s that? I am surprised at how many times those questions are asked when I mention metadata. At a recent talk before the Yakima County Bar Association there was not a person in the audience that knew about metadata. Everyone had better start learning.
Metadata is data about data. Whenever you create a Word or Wordperfect document the program retains such information about the document as who originally created it, how many times and when it was revised, how much time was spent revising it and who revised it. It could be very embarrassing for a tech savvy client to find out that the letter you sent them was really a revision of another letter that you copied from another client’s file. Or, it would be useful for the opposing counsel to know that your terse letter setting forth your bottom line had been revised a half dozen times. Worse yet, attorneys that don’t know how to turn off their “track changes” or how to get rid of the information created by “track changes” risk having opposing counsel be able to see all of your changes to the document.
Is it unethical for opposing counsel to look at or look for this metadata? No, it isn’t according to a recent ethics opinion by the ABA. So …. all the more reason to learn about metadata. For a good source on this subjectgo to this post at Evan Schaefer’s Legal Underground for information and additional links to even more information.
