Watch Your Metadata

Donna Payne, of Payne Group, does a nice wrap up of the issues relating to metadata (or "data about data", which can include author and version information as well as changes to contractual terms in the document you just created in Microsoft Word). Of particular interest are examples of how courts and others have failed to properly eliminate metadata before "publishing" a document. The American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center (Catherine Reach, director) has some additional tips and suggestions (PDF) surrounding ethical use by lawyers of technology.