A secure democratic Net is a fundamental right

Over the years, it’s become less and less appropriate to convert discovery materials originally stored in an electronic format into hardcopy (i.e., paper) form for production to a requesting party. The downsides to receiving materials in this format are obvious and well-documented: greatly reduced ability to search the collection, potential loss of helpful (and relevant) metadata, and significantly higher storage costs. That said, in many cases that involve a limited amount of discovery materials, litigation teams continue to exchange electronically stored information (“ESI”) in printed form. After all, for only a few boxes of documents, paper remains fairly manageable. And, if the parties agree to a paper production format - or haven’t specifically requested an alternate format -no further discussion is needed, right?

http://www.llrx.com/columns/hardcopyesi.htm