Electronic discovery or “e-discovery” is the process of producing relevant electronically stored information (ESI) to another party in litigation. Advances in technology have created an ever-expanding universe of ESI, making e-discovery more expensive, time-consuming and burdensome than ever before. Consider that:
- The world sends over 60 billion e-mails daily.
- 90% of all documents generated today are electronic.
- A single hard drive can store the equivalent of 40 million pages.
As the volume of ESI continues to expand, the costs to preserve, collect, review and produce it in litigation are growing daily.
E-Discovery Obstacles
The enormous amount of electronic data has created significant obstacles for attorneys and their clients. Today’s lawyers and legal professionals must not only understand substantive and procedural law, they must also understand legal technology and data preservation retention policies in order to navigate the growing world of ESI.
The nature of ESI poses unique issues for litigants. Unlike paper documents stored in filing cabinets, banker’s boxes and warehouses, ESI resides in Word and Excel files, e-mails, instant message conversations, CDs, DVDs flash drives, thumb drives, voice mails, digital photographs, CAD files and other media, making data hard to track down. Moreover, ESI can be altered, corrupted or lost and may be duplicated and dispersed with the click of a button.
Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have further complicated the e-discovery process. These rules have expanded the types of evidence subject to discovery. The rules also impose strict deadlines for the production of ESI and require the parties to address e-discovery issues early in the litigation. The failure to properly preserve and produce ESI in litigation can result in serious consequences including court sanctions.
The exponential growth of electronically stored information and the challenges it poses to the legal profession have created new career opportunities in the legal field. These opportunities include careers in e-discovery and in litigation support.
