Nine months into a litigation on behalf of current and former audit associates at KPMG LLP seeking overtime pay, a federal magistrate judge ordered the accounting firm to preserve the laptop hard drives of thousands of potential class members. KPMG said that might cost more than $100 million.
The ruling in October hit the legal profession, particularly the defense side, like a tire iron — a clear example, it seemed, of out-of-control electronic-discovery costs. The order fed an impression that attorneys were using such exorbitant requests to force settlements.
