Huseby Inc. Court Reporting Blog | Nationwide Court Reporters

eDiscovery

As far back as we’ve had a legal system one of the most common litigation support services has been discovery, the process of sorting through papers to find documents relevant to litigation. Huseby’s clients still need discovery but often it is ediscovery, the process of sorting through electronic documents. We want to show some unique features of ediscovery using email as an example but note this information could apply to any electronic file.

Lots More Information

Generating a paper document takes effort, even if it’s just printing it from your computer. Writing a business letter is a formal process but email is easy. Type a couple of sentences, click send and you’ve gotten it off your desk.

Email generates even more documents because it is often used to replace phone calls. Rather than playing phone tag it’s easier to send an email to a box that’s always there and allow the recipient to respond when it is convenient. It’s also a great way to get information to someone after hours.

Computers make it easy to make copies of information. In addition to formal backups, you might save a copy of a message in another folder. Or you forward an interesting email to someone else who forwards it on to others. Some people feel it necessary to CC everybody in the company each time they send any message at all.

For these reasons, Huseby’s ediscovery cases typically involve more information than a paper discovery case would.

The Power of Metadata

Electronic files contain metadata, which is data about the data. When you send an email you are sending more than just “Hi, Bob”. Your original email shows information on every recipient, even the blind CCs that other recipients can’t see. It shows that you really sent the message on Friday even though you claim you sent it Thursday. It even reveals the computer you were on which could prove awkward if you claimed you were at the office but this message was sent from home.

Ediscovery sometimes focuses on the metadata more than the data. Because metadata is generated by the computer it is objective, although it can be forged like any data.

Fast Sorting and Organization

Because of the volume of information in an ediscovery case, some companies are afraid it will be a long, expensive process. In fact it goes much faster than paper discovery.

The documents are already in electronic format so they can be sorted by computer. The metadata gives another layer of information for filtering so that you don’t get messages about the company Christmas party cluttering up the court records. It’s easy for all parties involved to zero in on exactly the information needed.

Although ediscovery was used in cases before then, the process was formalized in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2006. You can be sure that Huseby’s procedures will follow all necessary regulations to give you the information you need quickly and completely.