e-Discovery

 

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 Electronic discovery (or e-discovery) refers to discovery in civil litigation which deals with information in electronic format also referred to as Electronically Stored Information (ESI). 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 not present in paper documents. However, paper documents can be scanned into electronic format and then manually coded with metadata. The preservation of metadata from electronic documents creates special challenges to prevent spoliation. Meta data is sometimes relevant and plays an important part as evidence in litigation. Electronic discovery was the subject of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 1, 2006.  

Examples of the types of data included in e-discovery are e-mail, instant messaging chats, documents 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,”, PDF format, or as single-page TIFF images.

Although petrifying documents to static image formats (tiff & jpeg) had become the standard document review method for almost two decades, native format review has increased in popularity as a method for document review since around 2004. Because it requires the review of documents in their original file formats, applications and toolkits capable of opening multiple file formats have also become popular. This is also true in the ECM (Electronic Content Management) storage markets which are converging quickly with ESI technologies.

Petrification involves the conversion of native files into an image format that does not require use of the native applications. This is useful in the redaction of privileged or sensitive information, since redaction tools for images are traditionally more mature, and easier to apply on uniform image types. Efforts to redact similarly petrified PDF files have resulted in the removal of redacted layers and exposure of redacted information, such as social security numbers and other private information.

Traditionally, electronic discovery vendors had been contracted to convert native files into TIFF images (for example 10 images for a 10 page Microsoft Word document) with a loadfile for use in image-based discovery review database applications. Increasingly, database review applications have embedded native file viewers with tiff-capababilities. With both native and image file capabilities, it could either increase or decrease the total necessary storage, since there may be multiple formats and files associated with each individual native file. Deployment, storage and best practices are becoming especially critical and necessary to maintain cost-effective strategies.

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

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