Professional foreign language document translations and language interpreting services play an important role during discovery stage of litigation. We’ve discussed certified document translation services of the evidence found in social media.
There is no doubt that an attorney wishing to obtain evidence located on a private social media platform has the right to seek such evidence via the formal discovery process. In fact, numerous courts have ruled that such a practice is allowed so long as the discovery demand is made in good faith and is in line with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and related laws and rules).
That being said, the practical side of carrying out such a discovery request is complex, difficult and often frustrating, especially when dealing with multilingual documents requiring multilingual document translation services. The very nature of social media means that there are multiple levels – and expectations – of privacy and many of the networks are set up to vigorously protect this notion. Although courts have held that these privacy interests cannot serve as a bar to discovery, they often will take into consideration the potential invasion of privacy that such a discovery request would mean. As a general rule, courts will not allow for ‘fishing’ and tend to only allow specific and very narrow requests.