Considerations During the Identification Stage of the EDRM

During the Identification Stage, the goal is to create and deploy a plan to identify, preserve, authenticate, and collect relevant ESI. Through identifying and defining preferred data sources that potentially hold relevant information, outlining defensible protocols to preserve and collect both structured and unstructured data, and establishing the context that this information is being used, legal teams can create a data map to aid in defining the scope of the case.

The identification stage can also defensibly reduce the amount of data through eliminating overly broad information by outlining a plan to de-duplicate, de-NIST, and cull the data. This stage is also helpful for locating data that may have been overlooked and unconventional data sources such as Slack or WhatsApp. Once identified counsel can review the forensic collection options for the discoverable data sources. This stage however is customizable based on the options available to outside counsel.

Actionable Discovery Data Mapping Steps

• Conduct IT data footprint interview
• Conduct department head interview
• Create matter specific custodian questionnaire
• Review data disposition policy
• Review data retention policy
• Outline de-dupe, de-NIST, and culling workflow

Reach out today to learn why law firms and corporate legal teams continue to leverage TERIS for eDiscovery, forensics, hosting, and managed services.