Electronic Discovery Navigator

Automated Management of Legal Holds

Automated Management of Legal Holds

"Recent federal court cases have reinforced that legal holds are an indispensable element of electronic discovery. A legal hold is a corporation’s legal duty to preserve electronically stored information (“ESI”). A hold issued internally within a corporation places potentially key custodians on notice to retain materials that may be relevant to legal claims of a pending or anticipated matter. Although these cases are highly fact-specific, federal courts have noted that the duty to preserve is invoked “when the party has notice that the evidence is relevant to the litigation or when a party should have known that the evidence may be relevant to future litigation.” Instituting and managing a legal hold must thus take place from inception through release."

Autonomy Unveils Legal Hold Solution

Autonomy Unveils Legal Hold Solution

"Autonomy Corporation, a provider of infrastructure software, has unveiled an advanced legal hold solution that automates the multi-faceted process necessary to preserve electronically stored information across laptops, desktops and all enterprise data sources.
According to Autonomy, the legal hold solution combines and automates custodian notification and management with electronically stored information (ESI) identification, preservation and collection - all on a single platform, reducing the risks and costs associated with the legal hold process and the duty to preserve by extending an organization's control of its information to the edge of the network.

Unlike other legal hold point solutions, Autonomy's legal hold solution offers a legally defensible process that combines automated ESI identification, preservation, and collection with notification and interview management, and the ability to automatically suggest custodians and data sources, Autonomy said.

Additionally, unlike stand-alone preservation and collection solutions, which require persistent connections to laptops and desktops for search, identification, and collection, Autonomy's solution is reportedly geared towards global enterprise use by using policies to drive preservation in-place and offline collections with a 'Preserve-In-Place' capability for laptops and desktops, in addition to enterprise data sources. Autonomy applies intelligent hold policies against an enterprise's entire corpus of data, while allowing for multiple forensically sound collection options."

 

Legal Holds Process Behind eDiscovery Risk?

Legal Holds Process Behind eDiscovery Risk?

"Released by CGOC, a practitioners’ forum focused on records retention and preservation practices, and the Huron Consulting Group, the survey looked at legal holds and e-discovery practices in companies with annual revenues ranging from US$5 (AU$7.35) billion to more than US$150 (AU$220.62) billion.

Titled “Benchmark Survey on Prevailing Practices for Legal Holds in Global 1000 Companies”, the survey focused on corporate practices for preserving information in litigation, identifying custodians of data, communicating legal holds, interviewing custodians, and collecting potentially relevant data."

Mobile Computing Holds Compliance Risks

Mobile Computing Holds Compliance Risks

"Mobile computing is commonplace for much of corporate America. Employees routinely use cell phones and PDAs, enabling them to work beyond the physical confines of their offices. These ubiquitous devices, however, represent only a fraction of the innovations used by modern companies to facilitate working anytime, anywhere. Improved connectivity infrastructure in the residential sector, virtual conferencing capabilities and paperless offices are just a few of the recent mobile computing innovations that allow an "office" to be completely mobile, with employees deployed globally at a moment's notice.

Mobile computing has forever changed the workplace landscape. It has given rise to alternative work arrangements; indeed, some employees now work exclusively "out of the office." Many companies have drastically reduced their office space and encourage their employees to work on the road or at home."

'U Can't Touch This' Litigation Hold

'U Can't Touch This' Litigation Hold

"No one would confuse the stereotypical IT geek with someone as cool as one-time hip-hop mogul MC Hammer.

Yet, sometimes when the IT staff sacrifices lawyers' work habits on the altar of implementing a "litigation-hold" policy, it seems like Hammer's simple musical advice rules the day: "U Can't Touch This."

From the lawyers' side of the divide, the IT department's well-intentioned effort to comply with procedural rules to enforce a litigation-hold policy often seems like interference with our professional duties to clients, and how we do our jobs."

Bridgeway Develops Legal Hold Solution for eDiscovery

Bridgeway Develops Legal Hold Solution for eDiscovery

"Bridgeway, the leading provider of technology solutions for in-house legal departments, announced that it has developed a new Legal Hold application and workflow product to assist with the notification and preservation process.

According to Rich Hall, Vice President of eDiscovery Solutions at Bridgeway, "General counsel have told us that they want a Legal Hold application that manages preservation notices, interviews, and collections more cost-effectively than previously available offerings."

Bridgeway Legal Hold is designed to assist corporate legal departments with generating, distributing and tracking preservation notices. In addition, it provides the ability to track interviews and capture results of interviews, and it supports the process to collect the discoverable data."

Firefighting Lawyers and the Burning Issues of Legal Hold

Firefighting Lawyers and the Burning Issues of Legal Hold

"Most organizations are under the misimpression that by simply maintaining a generic legal hold policy, they will avoid any adverse consequences in litigation. Those organizations are wrong. In fact, one could have a brilliant legal hold plan and still face sanctions if it fails to address the downstream process. Legal hold is actually only the first step.

In the wake of recent court rulings, the business community is facing the reality that discovery is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Organizations that cannot defend their practices in court are almost certain to waste resources and face an uphill battle before a judge. This modern complexity warrants a repeatable, consistent and defensible process, which is only possible through automation.

Armed with this understanding, entities with hundreds of cases pending simultaneously and hundreds or thousands of potential document custodians are still supervising their entire effort with Excel spreadsheets. They need to quickly implement a proactive solution in the present or face a radioactive problem in the future."

FTI Consulting to Adopt Innovative and Comprehensive Legal Hold and e-discovery Solution

FTI Consulting to Adopt Innovative and Comprehensive Legal Hold and e-discovery Solution

"DiscoveryBox, designer of the only enterprise-class, fully-integrated, end-to-end legal hold and electronic discovery management software, announced today that its product has been selected by FTI Consulting, Inc. ("FTI") NYSE: FCN to be implemented on a beta test basis. The agreement also provides that FTI will provide consulting services to DiscoveryBox and to clients seeking to implement an in-house legal hold solution.

"To truly see a significant ROI on an e-discovery solution, our clients require a comprehensive solution that makes the electronic discovery process more efficient and effective. DiscoveryBox has tremendous promise for delivering on this vision," said Adam Bendell, Senior Managing Director of FTI. "Particularly for clients with existing Documentum infrastructure, DiscoveryBox provides perhaps the quickest path to a legal hold solution that will scale across the enterprise."

With its unique Legal Hold Repository, DiscoveryBox allows companies to preserve documents in an independent repository that is free from normal document destruction policies. Through a Legal Hold Manager, managers and high-level executives have the ability to manage the full range of e-discovery matters, assign review responsibilities and issue and track all legal holds across the enterprise. Significantly, DiscoveryBox also creates tremendous value to companies by allowing documents to be re-used across multiple matters. Frequently, multiple lawsuits spring from the same set of facts, and companies waste untold amounts of time and money collecting and reviewing the same documents over and over again. DiscoveryBox puts an end to needless duplication of work."

FTI Consulting to Beta Test DiscoveryBox, Companies Enter Into Partnership Agreement

FTI Consulting to Beta Test DiscoveryBox, Companies Enter Into Partnership Agreement

"DiscoveryBox, designer of the only enterprise-class, fully-integrated, end-to-end legal hold and electronic discovery management software, announced today that its product has been selected by FTI Consulting, Inc. ("FTI") NYSE: FCN to be implemented on a beta test basis. The agreement also provides that FTI will provide consulting services to DiscoveryBox and to clients seeking to implement an in-house legal hold solution.

'To truly see a significant ROI on an e-discovery solution, our clients require a comprehensive solution that makes the electronic discovery process more efficient and effective. DiscoveryBox has tremendous promise for delivering on this vision," said Adam Bendell, Senior Managing Director of FTI. "Particularly for clients with existing Documentum infrastructure, DiscoveryBox provides perhaps the quickest path to a legal hold solution that will scale across the enterprise.'"

Digital Strata Releases Powerful New Tool for Discovery and Litigation Hold Management

Digital Strata Releases Powerful New Tool for Discovery and Litigation Hold Management

"Digital Strata, a premier software developer that creates applications specifically for legal processes within companies of all sizes, is proud to announce the launch and general availability of their latest product: Discovery Agent(TM).

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It is the first application designed, from the ground up, to manage everything involved with discovery and litigation holds. With the volume of information typical in discovery -- which can run to millions of pages of documentation -- the market was in desperate need of an efficient and easy-to-use system for management of the entire process, from beginning to end."