Out-Law News 2 min. read
09 Feb 2006, 11:36 am
Electronic discovery, or e-discovery, is the gathering of digitally stored business documentation relevant to a civil lawsuit, a prosecution or a government investigation into a regulatory violation.
Like the legal discovery of paper documents, e-discovery requires that a party to a legal proceeding produce, in a timely manner, any electronic document the court may deem relevant.
E-discovery can be costly and time consuming but the possible consequences of failing to prepare adequately for an e-discovery action can be disastrous, says Gartner. Companies have been sanctioned for failing to preserve electronically stored documents, even when the documents had not yet been requested, but the need to produce them had been ‘reasonably anticipated’.
The analyst firm predicts that in 2006 at least 75% of all global companies will be involved in legal or regulatory action that requires a systematic approach to legal discovery. Within this, IT will play a crucial role.
Gartner predicts that through 2010, companies that have not adopted formal e-discovery processes will spend twice as much on gathering and producing documents as they will on legal services.
“Chief Information Officers (CIOs), general counsels, IT security professionals, records and email administrators and operations staff all need to understand IT’s function in legal discovery,” said Debra Logan, research vice president at Gartner. “IT plays a crucial role in how content that becomes evidence is created, preserved, collected and turned over to the appropriate authorities.”
According to Ms Logan, the situation is further complicated by the lack of established standards for e-discovery.
“There is currently no clear model for e-discovery,” she said. “It really is down to the individual organisation to decide on how to proceed in conjunction with its legal counsel. Counsel must monitor the changing legal landscape and provide the best possible advice to the IT organisation about how to manage its assets and define its processes for regulatory and legal purposes.”
To help reduce the costs and risks associated with e-discovery, Ms Logan advised that IT departments should: