[EDRM Editor’s Note: The opinions and positions are those of the Michael D. Berman.]

A dispute over search terms led to a decision on keywords for searching Microsoft Teams. Kim v. Cushman & Wakefield U.S., Inc., 2026 WL 1353455 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 24, 2026). The court held that search terms that may be appropriate for email may not be sufficient for shorter, less formal communications on a platform like Teams.

Ms. Kim sued, alleging pregnancy discrimination. She had been terminated upon return from maternity leave. Defendants asserted that termination was part of a reduction in force. Ms. Kim alleged that the reason was pretextual.

This post focuses on only the Teams issue. The Kim court wrote: “Plaintiff argues that Defendant’s searches for relevant electronically stored information (ESI) were deficient. As it turned out, Defendant had not searched Microsoft Teams. But MS Teams, as one of Defendant’s own witnesses (Kathryn Raney) testified, was one of the primary communication methods used at Cushman & Wakefield.” Id. at *1.

The “oversight” was discovered and “[t]o Defendant’s credit, upon discovering the MS Teams gap, counsel immediately ran the existing search terms against MS Teams and produced 47 pages of messages” one day after the discovery. Two of the newly-produced messages were relevant to the pretext analysis. Id.

Understandably, the Plaintiff asked for more—too much more: “Plaintiff asks for a nearly indiscriminate search of ‘all reasonably likely repositories.’”

Defendant offered much less: “Defendant says it already ran the search terms against Teams and there’s nothing left.”

The court said: “Neither position is quite right.” It then turned to the specifics:

The problem with simply rerunning the existing search terms on Teams is that those terms all require “Connie Kim” as an anchor—e.g., “Connie Kim” NEAR “terminat!” …. It is arguable whether that may work well enough even for emails, but it cannot work for MS Teams chats about transition planning among managers who might say “the Smartsheet” or “Brooke’s workload” without mentioning Plaintiff by name. Keyword searches alone, without more advanced and thoughtful search techniques, will be inadequate for Teams data—a medium where conversations are shorter, more informal, and less likely to include full names than email.

Id. at *2 (emphasis added).

Faced with divergent positions following a defective search, the court said:

That does not mean, however, that Plaintiff gets to enforce the broadest version of a document request—seeking “all documents and communications relating to Plaintiff or her allegations”—or to demand an expansion of custodians or data sources with no concern for proportionality. At the same time, overbroad requests do not excuse incomplete searches. An objecting party that elects to search and produce—rather than move for a protective order—undertakes an obligation to search reasonably. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(1)(B). Defendant just didn’t search everywhere it should have. And the proportionality analysis under Rule 26(b)(1) weighs in Plaintiff’s favor with respect to MS Teams. This is a pregnancy discrimination case in which the timing and circumstances of the termination decision are among central disputed facts. Defendant has exclusive access to its own internal communications about termination decisions before any final termination news was delivered to Plaintiff. The transition-related Teams messages already produced confirm that relevant communications exist in this repository.

Id. at *1 (emphasis added).

The Kim court entered alternative holdings.

The first holding was:

Ultimately, the court is in no position to prescribe how Defendant must conduct the supplemental search of MS Teams. Defendant is free to consult with its eDiscovery consultant on the most efficient and defensible methods for searching, reviewing, and producing Teams data. What this order can prescribe, though, is the scope of the obligation. How Defendant fulfills that obligation—whether through custodian-based collection, refined keyword queries, or technology-assisted review—is Defendant’s choice, so long as the search is reasonable and the production is complete.

Id. at *2. 

The alternative holding was that absent agreement, three named custodians were to be searched using a date range specified by the court, and under a judicially-specified scope. The court added: “Nothing in this order prevents the parties from cooperating in the refinement of search parameters for MS Teams. But absent agreement, the scope articulated above shall govern.” Id. at *3.

The court reasoned that the cause of the problem was failures by both parties during the Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(f) conference:

To the extent that the burden of additional searches creates work for Defendant, that is in large part a problem of their own making by not including a primary communications platform like MS Teams in their discovery plan. This court’s Standing Order on Civil Discovery—which has been in effect throughout this case—emphasizes the obligation to identify ESI sources, repositories, and communication platforms during the Rule 26(f) conference. …. Had Defendant identified Teams as a communication platform at the outset, the search would have been completed months ago and no compressed deadline would be necessary. At the same time, Plaintiff shares much of the responsibility, too. The Joint Rule 26(f) Report … reflects a single paragraph on ESI: the parties are “unaware of any e-discovery issues” and agree to “cooperate to develop search terms, protocols, and methods to minimize the expense of ESI.” That is the kind of pro forma ESI discussion this court’s Standing Order warns against.… Had the parties conducted a substantive ESI conference at the outset—identifying repositories, custodians, and communication platforms as the Standing Order and the 2006 Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 26(f) require—the MS Teams gap would have been identified months ago and this motion wouldn’t have been necessary. [emphasis added].

I have some concerns. First, of course, every case is dependent on its facts. However, I can envision many cases where one size will indeed fit all, email and Teams, including, for example, chats. Second, Teams may, for a non-exhaustive example, contain audio recordings, meeting records, and transcripts, none of which appear to be either short or informal.

I asked Tom O’Connor of Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center for some of his thoughts. In response to the court’s suggestion that keyword searches “without more advanced and thoughtful search techniques, will be inadequate for Teams data,” he explained that keyword searches inside Teams work. But Teams supports only basic keyword matching and a few command-style filters. This means that Outlook can be precise, while Teams requires looser terms to catch variations. 

He raised another important point—what tool was used for the search? Was it a search of Outlook email or Teams chats? Was Purview or a third-party tool used?

Tom explained:

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