Prepare Your Organization for E-Discovery

E-discovery is not the type of thing that IT managers and executives jump up and cheer about or throw a pizza party to commemorate. But even though preparing adequately for e-discovery takes time and effort, it’s an essential aspect of doing business. Being prepared for e-discovery ensures that your organization can comply in a timely way with attorney or government requests for information.

Successful e-discovery preparations must satisfy legal requirements. But equally important for any e-discovery plan is that it be feasible for the IT department to establish and manage.

“E-discovery deals with the intersection of law and technology,” says Dan Pelletier, US East’s Director, eDiscovery and Information Governance Consulting. “The big part of e-discovery is the reasonableness of the discovery process, and the reasonableness can be informed by law or it can be informed by technology, depending on the circumstances.”

Explosion of information

Technology is both driving the need for e-discovery and the development of solutions that make e-discovery easier (for example, predictive technology). “The explosion of data that we’re seeing today has driven organizations to struggle with that volume of data and how they’re going to search it, store it, and prepare it for litigation,” says Pelletier.

To be able to find and review relevant data in the timeframes that are mandated in a legal case or government investigation, your organization must have the necessary elements of an e-discovery system in place:

• Document management system — a tool or collection of tools that categorize and store company information.
• Collection system — tools that allow you to collect from the document management system, active and live systems, and/or user desktops or devices.
• Social media collection tools — robust tools designed to search, sort, and compile unstructured data on social media sites.
• Discovery hosting software — tools designed specifically for processing and reviewing data for e-discovery.
• Legal hold software — software to process, store, and track necessary documents for the recordkeeping that’s needed for legal compliance.

With a robust information governance policy, proper employee training, companywide buy-in, and the right set of tools, your organization will have an efficient process for data retention and also be well prepared for e-discovery.

[cta]Need expert help with your e-discovery project? Contact US East at info@useastusa.com or by phone at 212-840-3444. Or visit our website.[/cta]