Deloitte Dbrief on E-Discovery

Deloitte has released a summary of their recent webcast about the "discovery continuum". Some highlights:

Companies face a doubling of data they produce every 18-24 months. Legal cases that produce a terabyte of data (56 million pages) are common.

• IT Departments: Data and records management has become a key function for all companies.
  
• Attorneys: Companies expect their legal counsel to understand their IT and data management systems.
• Courts: Judges tend to be more lenient with companies that have data management programs in place and follow them.
• Committee: A committee should be formed to develop the data management system and include in-house counsel, IT department, business unit leaders, and records management personnel.

Deloitte identifies three distinct steps in this process.

Proactive Discovery

• Preservation activity helps prevent destruction of documents and data when required.
• Companies need clearly articulated records management policies and procedures.
  
• Programs must address e-discovery — collection, sorting, management, and storage.

Processing and Hosting of Electronic Data

• Increasing data requires more data storage and processing capacity.
• Mutinational companies may face a multiple of data if business is conducted in multiple languages.
• The European Union has strict privacy rules limited what can be transmitted across borders.

Document Review

• Concept analytics, keyword searches, and folder analysis are getting better.
  
• “Smart” system technology is still in its infancy, but it is promising.