From Wikipedia, the free encyclopeda

Below you will find the eDiscovery entry from Wikipedia.com in its entirety, reprinted under the GNU Free Documentation License.

(Redirected from Ediscovery)
Jump to: navigation, search

Electronic discovery, or "e discovery", refers to discovery in civil litigation which deals with information in electronic form. In this context elecronic form is the representation of information as binary numbers. Electronic information is different from paper information because of its intangible form, volume, transience, and persistence. Also, electronic information is usually accompanied by metadata, which is rarely present in paper information. Electronic discovery poses new challenges and opportunities for attorneys, their clients, technical advisors, and the courts, as electronic information is collected, reviewed and produced. Electronic discovery is the subject of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which are effective December 1, 2006.[1]

Examples of the types of data included in e-discovery include e-mails, Microsoft Office files, accounting databases, CAD/CAM files, Web sites, and any other electronically-stored information which could be relevant evidence in a law suit. Also included in e-discovery is "raw data" which Forensic Investigators can review for hidden evidence. The original file format is known as the "native" format. Litigators may review material from e-discovery in one of several formats: printed paper, "native file," or as TIFF images. If the native file, for example a Microsoft Word document, contains 10 pages, then an electronic discovery vendor will convert it into 10 TIFF images for use in a discovery review database. Documents that are produced are numbered using Bates numbering.

Individuals working in the field of electronic discovery commonly refer to the field as Litigation Support.


Document Coding

In the past, to better organize and manage their documents, lawyers and paralegals would many times use outside vendors to code their documents for specific fields, and request that a database be built to easily classify and reference documents during review. Information captured from these documents, to be inserted into a database would include "to", "from", "document type (i.e. letter, memo, brief, or other)", "document date" and others, to help attorneys and paralegals find pertinent documents to their case.

Usually, the process known as "coding" would be (and still is) done manually, and can be very expensive and time consuming. With the advent of computer technology and equipment becoming more common and affordable in recent years, it has now become common practice for opposite sides in civil litigation to request electronic files (not just paper) to help build their case. Electronic discovery is especially useful when processing and analyzing an e-mail account, where there is direct proof of any sent or received message threads.

Conveniences vs. Standard Document Coding

One of the major conviniences of performing electronic discovery, versus standard document coding, is that it is an automated process, in which digital files are taken, have their meta data extracted, and built into a database. This process can be done at a much lower cost, not just because it takes less time to accomplish, but because most of the time it takes to accomplish is considered machine time, and not man hours.

Using this process, the number of fields you can capture are only limited to the amount of meta data each file can give you. Common fields used in electronic discovery include "to", "from", "cc", "bcc", "time/date message sent", "time/date message received", "subject", "body", "author", "document date", "date created", "last modified date", and others.

When a need arises to perform electronic discovery, usually a litigation support vendor would be contacted, and will consult as to how data can be processed to have the best possible result. The vendor would extract the necessary information from the files provided, either using proprietary software developed by the vendor, or an "off the shelf" solution, such as Z-print or Discovery Cracker.

Using the information extracted from the raw data, either a load file, or a database is built. The databases or load files are then processed through softwares or Application Service Providers such as Concordance, Summation, FileControl, Introspect or Ringtail among others.

Resources on electronic discovery

Home