E-DISCOVERY SERVICES

It always happens electronically with the objective of identifying, collecting and producing information from ESI sources. ESI material includes, but is not limited to, digital material such as audio and video files and voice mail (which will normally be transcribed as text), as well as emails, documents, presentations, databases, social media and blog posts, websites, etc.

For many, e-Discovery services are something of a mystery and an area that is approached with care and respect. Cases involving foreign data and international litigation are becoming increasingly frequent and must be addressed immediately.

The ultimate goal of e-Discovery is to produce a basic volume of evidence for litigation in a defensible manner.

What does it consist of?

Parties typically identify data on both sides of a matter and ask us to verify relevant documents (which may include electronic and hard copies).

These materials are then placed under a legal hold; this means that they cannot be modified, deleted, removed or otherwise destroyed. Potentially relevant data is collected and then extracted, indexed and placed in a database. At this point, the data is analyzed to select or separate clearly irrelevant documents.

The data is hosted in a secure environment and made accessible to reviewers who code the documents according to their relevance to the legal matter (attorneys and paralegals are often used for this phase of document review).

Sometimes the relevant documents are converted to a static format such, as a PDF or an image (TIFF, PNG). It is then possible to add information, as long as such information is not relevant to the case. The use of computer assisted review (CAR), or technology assisted review (TAR), predictive coding, and other analytical software for e-Discovery reduces the number of documents needed for attorney review, and allows the legal team to prioritize the documents it does review. Reducing the number of documents also reduces working hours, and therefore costs.

Many believe that the processes and technologies around e-Discovery are often complex due to the sheer volume of electronic data being produced and stored. Unlike paper evidence, electronic documents are more dynamic and often contain metadata, such as date and time stamps, author and recipient information, and file properties. It is necessary to preserve the original content and metadata of electronically stored information to eliminate claims of contaminating or tampering with evidence later in litigation. At Pangeanic, we know how.