Early Case Assessments Using Hosted Email Archiving

Seth — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:59:11 +0000

Early Case Assessment is a popular concept among e-discovery types because, among other things, it showcases how ESI can make litigation more efficient. What is Early Case Assessment? Although definitions vary widely, it basically describes any effort to understand the facts and the law of a case early enough that well-informed decisions about important issue like staffing, budget, strategy, and settlement, can be made before a significant investment is made in the case. It is promoted by corporate clients who are tired of asking outside counsel what a case is likely to cost or whether to settle and getting the standard “it is too early to tell” answer. Based on experience I believe that focusing on email as part of the factual investigation piece of the early case assessment is the way to go. I just put together this white paper for Smarsh, Inc., a Portland company that is a leader in hosted email archiving, making the case for using a product like theirs in Early Case Assessment. More to come on the intersection of e-discovery and Early Case Assessment…

E-Discovery and eCompliance

Seth — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:44:16 +0000

A new article in SC Magazine (aimed at IT Security professionals) makes the argument for a unified approach to e-discovery and compliance when considering an ECM (enterprise content management) solution. The article lists requirements for a truly effective and comprehensive sytem, and makes the point that much of a company’s valuable data (the article claims 80%) are held outside what is usually captured in an ECM system. The article advocates for integration of “ECM Lite” – an add on to the ECM system that does not fully capture the data into ECM but does enough to enable some control and indexing of that data.

The requirements promoted by this article that have the most resonance for me as an e-discovery lawyer are: 1) that the system be able to automatically detect and then index data and data sources as they are added to the system, instead of relying on a static information management topography – this is critical particularly in a distributed workforce scenario where workers may, by necessity, change storage media to keep up with their needs and do not rely on “company issue” system components; 2) the ability to “hold” (as in, preserve when legally required) data “in place” – not move it to another repository. As all e-discovery lawyers know, sometimes the most important data is not the substance of the file, but where it is on the system.

A good read and indication of the growing awareness of litigation needs in the IT community.

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Early Case Assessments Using Hosted Email Archiving

E-Discovery and eCompliance