Definition: E-discovery, an abbreviated term for electronic discovery, is the obligation of parties to a lawsuit to exchange documents that exist only in electronic form (known as ESI). Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, enacted in late 2006, now compel include civil litigants to preserve and produce electronic evidence. Examples of electronic documents and data subject to e-discovery are e-mails, voicemails, instant messages, e-calendars, audio files, data on handheld devices, animation, metadata, graphics, photographs, spreadsheets, websites, drawings and other types of digital data.
Also Known As: Electronic Discovery, EDD, electronic data discovery
Alternate Spellings: ediscovery
Examples: Plaintiffs turned over all their computer archives in response to the defendant’s e-discovery requests.
