eDiscovery is like a natural disaster at most organizations; we think about it but never really comprehend how impactful it is until it "hits." When it "hits" it can dominate the focus of many groups within the enterprise. Legal goes into a mad-scramble to make sure they have what they need and to make sure nobody disposes of data they can reasonably expect will be part of the litigation. IT is asked to create and manage the collection of information assets that are spread across the organization in all sorts of systems (especially email and user files). I have seen organizations "weather the storm" by taking 3 Big Steps to better position themselves for an eDiscovery event:

Step 1: Process massive amount of unmanaged data into an indexed and managed system.

Email and user files are the target of most eDiscovery events and require massive amounts of time to find, index, manage and produce. This data is often gathered by IT (.pst files and loose files) as well as restored from backup tapes in a "discovery lab." The problem: it is extremely expensive; time consuming; out of scope for most IT groups trying to complete "normal" projects; and exposes sensitive information to employees outside of Legal. Further, most of this work is a one-off and is not reproducible (i.e. efforts do not yield a reusable repository if another eDiscovery event occurs).

Organizations need to bring this data into a managed system, such as an archive, so that it is centrally managed, can be easily preserved (put on hold), indexed, while remaining as a searchable,reusable asset for future eDiscoveries.


Key Benefit
: Dramatically reduced cost of searching and producing HISTORICAL email and file assets for an eDiscovery.

Step 2: Actively process NEW data into a managed repository.

Again, email and files are the key components that can be managed into a centralized repository along with other key data types (like SharePoint). The solution used in Step 1 can now be used for ongoing data management and access (with appropriate retention and hold capabilities). When an eDiscovery event occurs, legal can easily manage and produce the data already indexed and available in the solution, including most recent data. IT can focus on their normal projects and Legal is assured that they have everything.



Key Benefit:

Further reduction in eDiscovery costs by centrally managing new data DIRECTLY into a solution that provides legal with self-service.

Step 3: Uniform retention, access and security for business critical information across data types.

Organizations leverage their records management discipline to define what business processes require data to be kept against retention, access, security and disposition rules defined in the records management group. The challenge is making sure the same rules are used across data types, such as a contract sent in email or faxed via the imaging system. This step enables end users to easily declare and keep the records they create on a daily basis and put them into a managed solution that provides centralized access, retention, disposition and security across all data types. Legal can now find critical business data in an organized system, for example: contracts for a vendor can be found in one logical folder without regard for how they were created (email, fax, paper) versus trying to find the email when it is mixed-in with the other 60,000 messages a user receives a month. All other data becomes transient and can be disposed of on a more prudent schedule, eliminating the cost of discovering data that has past its useful life.


Key Benefit:
Further reductions in eDiscovery costs by eliminating "non-records" and automated disposition of data when retention has been reached. Increased legal and business effectiveness by providing business centric (information is classified) access to critical data assets.