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Gilded Age Electronic Discovery


Attorneys have been using technology to send business communications for far longer than computers and emails have been around. The Martindale Directory of 1900 contains a record of how lawyers of the Gilded Age used the technology of the day to efficiently send messages about business transactions. At the beginning of the directory is a list of cipher codes used in telegrams. Presumably, these codes allowed lawyers and their clients to communicate with a measure of confidentiality and for a cheaper per letter/word cost.

If a client sent a telegram to an attorney using the word, 'GYMNAST' the message would be, 'Have we power to arrest the party named below on the facts as stated to you?' The code HEDONIC was a direction by an attorney meaning, "Send at once full name of each member of your firm, or if you are corporation, give name of State in which you were incorporated. This we need in matter of your claim against . . .". '


Sean O'Shea has more than 20 years of experience in the litigation support field with major law firms in New York and San Francisco.   He is an ACEDS Certified eDiscovery Specialist and a Relativity Certified Administrator.

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The views expressed in this blog are those of the owner and do not reflect the views or opinions of the owner’s employer.

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