Electronic Discovery Navigator

Five best practices for your email archive

Five best practices for your email archive

"Here are some best practices and strategies to follow when choosing and implementing an email archiving tool:

1. Seek buy-in from the legal/compliance team and business leaders when selecting an email archiving technology and setting retention policies.
Legal counsel/compliance officers know the regulations and requirements applying to the length of time the electronic data must be kept. Business managers know any special policies that need to be taken into account, such as product warranties.

2. Grant few, if any, exceptions to email archiving policies.
Exceptions can open the door for opposing counsel to challenge the validity of the information discovered in connection with a lawsuit."

Crafting a More Effective Keyword Search

Crafting a More Effective Keyword Search

"Federal Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm called for "careful advance planning by persons qualified to design effective search methodology" and testing search methods for quality assurance. "The party selecting the methodology must be prepared to explain the rationale for the method chosen to the court, demonstrate that it is appropriate for the task, and show that it was properly implemented," he declared.

Then federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck issued a "wake up call to the bar," excoriating counsel for proposing thousands of artless search terms:

'Electronic data discovery requires cooperation between opposing counsel and transparency in all aspects of preservation and production of electronically stored information. Moreover, where counsel are using keyword searches for retrieval of ESI, they at a minimum must carefully craft the appropriate keywords, with input from custodians as to the words and abbreviations they use, and the proposed methodology must be quality control tested to ensure accuracy in retrieval and elimination of 'false positives.' It is time that the bar -- even lawyers who did not come of age in the computer era -- understand this.'"

The frustrations of e-discovery

The frustrations of e-discovery

"As escalating volumes and types of information drive swelling e-discovery costs, many firms are exploring how information retrieval technology can support critical steps in the e-discovery process. Manually reviewing documents represents the largest direct cost associated with e-discovery. To control this expense and mitigate legal risk, businesses are re-examining strategies, processes and technology investments.

Currently, few companies report having a holistic approach to e-discovery. Forrester’s research suggests just 23 per cent have an end-to-end approach to gather and filter data. And two-thirds consider their e-discovery strategy reactive rather than proactive.

We asked if firms were confident that, if challenged, their organisation could demonstrate that its electronically stored information was accurate, accessible and trustworthy. Fewer than one in five was very confident.

Several factors account for this lack of confidence. These include large and growing volumes of content; diverse applications, tools, and file types; undocumented, disorganised data architectures; increased litigation and rapidly changing case law; and a fragmented vendor ecosystem."

E-mail Management Lags

E-mail Management Lags

Here's a short slideshow about the lag in email management.

E-mails Still Are Not Treated As Important Business Records

E-mails Still Are Not Treated As Important Business Records

"Enterprises are unable to deal with the torrent of e-mail records bombarding their users because so many of them fail to set policies regarding retention, deletion and classification of e-mails, according to a report released by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM).

The report detailed the findings of a recent survey conducted among 1,109 members of AIIM, which showed most organizations fail to consistently handle e-mail management for legal discovery or efficiency purposes."

UPDATED: Delta Denies American's Claims Of Strategic Data Theft

UPDATED: Delta Denies American's Claims Of Strategic Data Theft

"Specifically, American alleged Imhof "misappropriated American's New York Passenger Sales strategy playbook: a 115-page color PowerPoint presentation," according to court documents. "Mr. Imhof forwarded this presentation, and the accompanying e-mail, which discussed thoughts relating to the Delta/Northwest Airlines merger, to an outside e-mail account presumably belonging to a relative."

Imhof in a response this week admitted he "forwarded the e-mail, along with its attachment, to his family's home e-mail account," though Delta denied both that Imhof "misappropriated" trade secrets and "that the document referenced is protected as a trade secret."

American said it sent a letter to Delta shortly after Imhof began his employment, requesting "Delta conduct an investigation, that Delta take all steps necessary to ensure that American's information is protected and that Mr. Imhof and Delta preserve electronically stored information.'"

Addressing compliance requirements in cloud computing contracts

Addressing compliance requirements in cloud computing contracts

"Companies looking to use cloud computing infrastructure for data backup and storage need to factor in the compliance requirements before contracts are signed.

In some cases, the cloud provider will be able to satisfy compliance requirements -- but often at a price, according to two market experts. Even before price negotiations begin, CIOs must understand that data backup and storage in the cloud does not remove a company's responsibility for the legal, regulatory and audit obligations attached to that information.

CIOs should be ready with a list of compliance questions for cloud vendors. But don't expect their answers to suffice. Indeed, Gartner Inc. published a report last month stating that security, privacy and compliance will prevent adoption of cloud computing in regulated industries and global companies through 2012.

Here are some guidelines and advice from Debra Logan, an enterprise content management analyst for Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner, and Tom McHale, vice president of product management for CA's GRC manager suite. "

World still struggling with e-discovery: Survey

World still struggling with e-discovery: Survey

"Most organisations remain ill-equipped to manage information for electronic discovery requests in a timely and cost-effective manner. This is due to the lack of a proactive strategy, solutions and funding to properly address requests.

When asked which “information-centric” projects they would spend on in the next two years, respondents noted document workflow transformation, records management and e-discovery/compliance.

However, companies are still struggling with these fundamental requirements, primarily because they don’t understand the requirements for responding to e-discovery requests. In addition, they lack the funding for the right technology solutions to support finding the information they need."