Webster & Associates LLC

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Having reviewed these cases and the patterns they exhibit, some practical suggestions come to mind.

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: The manufacturer makes some change in the functionality or configuration of the system, which is already in use. The change results in unpleasant or unintended consequences for one or more clients.

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: The client buys a system from the vendor. Some time later, the client discovers that the system either no longer meet its needs or that the vendor/manufacturer will no longer support it.

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: The client contracts with the manufacturer to develop and install a system. The project starts. The completion date slips. It keeps slipping. Each time the adjusted delivery date approaches, the project slips yet again. At some point, one of three things happens: the manufacturer/vendor abandons [...]

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: This pattern actually lumps together two sub-patterns. In the first, the client purchases an IT system from the vendor by way of a leasing firm. The client is dissatisfied with the system and stops payment, whereupon the leasing firm sues the client. In the second [...]

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: The vendor makes claims for the functionality and/or performance benefits of the system. The client buys the system and has it installed. The client then believes that the system does not have the claimed benefits (performance, reliability and/or functionality). In some cases, the client ends [...]

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Summary: The client buys the system from the vendor. The client then claims that the system is defective, i.e., it has errors during operation, crashes, and so on. The vendor makes attempts to repair it, allegedly with limited and unsatisfactory success. In some cases, the client [...]

[Adapted from Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)]
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness…Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana, Life of Reason
Few professions appear to embody the quote above as the history of development projects using information technology: computer hardware, software, data, networks, and [...]

Several years ago, while working at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I reviewed documents and information that we had gathered regarding roughly 120 “IT systems failure” lawsuits, that is, lawsuits regarding a dispute over a two- or three-party IT systems development project. The fact pattern surrounding each case tended to fall into one or two of six major patterns:

Faulty [...]