Understandably, responding successfully starts with a
reliable, real-time data backup system including inherent
capabilities to store information from numerous disparate
sources in addition to in-house servers and workstations.
“The beauty of having comprehensive data backup is that
all the data is stored in a known location, where you do
not need to go to the employees,” says Su. “You can collect
everything without any interruptions or risk that employ-
ees will delete files.”
On top of an adequate backup system, the financial
services firm also utilizes collection and classification
tools designed to streamline and essentially automate the
otherwise time-consuming and costly eDiscovery
process. And, as anyone who has been through the eDis-
covery process will attest, having a means of effortlessly
searching and then classifying backed-up information is
crucial since it eliminates the need to conduct interviews,
place legal holds or manually search through disparate
devices.
As a result, the financial services firm can conduct the
type of targeted search that can bolster a firm’s defense
while the pharmaceutical firm is still trying to determine
applicable locations of information, explains Su.
“Organizations benefit significantly when they have the
ability to look into everyone’s PC data and immediately
identify which individuals within the organization possess
private data like Social Security and/or credit card data on
their systems,” says Su. You can then track down who else
has had access to the PC, how long the private data has
been on the device, etc. — this allows the organization
to establish a reliable chain of custody, which is almost
impossible to do in a manual search situation.”
Building the Case
When taking a manual approach, collecting the data is only
half of the battle since the next step often requires sorting
through mountains of duplicate data. After all, in a review
case, lawyers must sort through everything the organization
provides before determining what’s truly needed. At $100+
per hour, this could turn into a costly proposition.
Conversely, with collection and analysis tools in place, an
organization can rapidly triage the mountains of backed-up
data to efficiently identify its relevance to the lawsuit.
“It’s much like having a metal detector capable of
sorting through what you have. It gives you the ability to
quickly go through and find the information that’s more
relevant,” says Su. “Not having to focus all your resources
on the traditional/manual processes saves a significant
amount of work, and instead of weeks it can be just a mat-
ter of hours. The better you can classify your information,
the better prepared you are for litigation.”
As a result, the progressive organization only needs to
provide the most appropriate information to be further
CheCklist for
litigation readiness
Here are some guidelines for establishing a litigation-ready records management plan.
4 Define what constitutes an official business record for
your organization, remembering anything requested
for evidence automatically becomes a record, even if
your organization does not define it as so.
4 Determine how you will store and back up various
data types.
4 Carefully craft the policy.
4 Distribute the policy to all employees.
4 Include a “go live” date.
4 Appoint an owner.
refined in a complete eDiscovery process. “The less redundancy you give to the attorneys, the more money you save,”
says Su. “This is a huge benefit. Automatically collecting,
classifying and removing irrelevant data from the equation
quickly sets the stage, lowers risk and improves the review
process. And it enables the remainder of your discovery
process to address what’s most important to the matter.”
Understanding and managing the compliance and preservation obligations of this data, including dependencies,
becomes very difficult when a corporation continues to use
point solutions or do these activities manually, explains
Vivian Tero, Governance, Risk and Compliance Infrastructure program manager at IDC.
“Conducting eDiscovery using predominantly manual
activities become unwieldy and error prone,” she says.
“Inconsistencies in the process by which electronically
stored information is retrieved and processed exposes
the litigant to potential challenges in chain of custody, in
accessibility or inaccessibility of the data.”
Case Closed
There is no question that the right tools can yield substantial cost savings. After all, automating the process allows
the organization to reduce legal holds and time wasted with
irrelevant data, and avoid paying significant legal fees to
sort through repetitious e-documents.
Obviously when preparing a defense, there only is a
limited amount of time. As a result, the longer an organization devotes time to the often tedious component of
tracking down and collecting pertinent data, the less time
its team has available to review and ultimately produce a
winnable case. “Often, it’s the party who is more prepared
who wins,” says Su. ▲
