What Is eDiscovery?

In a civil case, one of the most important pre-trial phases is the discovery phase. In this phase of a trial, both sides provide the evidence they have gathered to the other side. This is done to make sure that the full evidence that will be presented at trial has been seen by both sides before the trial starts. The goal is to make sure that neither side can surprise the other with information that wasn't known by both parties. Discovery includes the exchange of all types of evidence, including depositions, interrogatories, and physical evidence. Discovery can produce a lot of information, particularly when the case involves many people, such as a class action suit.

This process used to be handled by human beings, who had to sort through all of the supplied information to find the relevant data. The shear number of documents involved can be impossible for humans to adequately process, though. Electronic discovery, or eDiscovery, is a system that uses computers to help narrow down the available information into more relevant and manageable amounts. The material produced by eDiscovery is generally a more refined set of data that is still read and used by human beings. Visit the link to get more information on predictive coding case law.

With eDiscovery, the relevant data is collected and preserved and then managed with software and the help of trained individuals. First, the data must be collected and preserved to avoid loss or spoilation. The data is collected and then stored in such a way as to preserve both the content and the metadata. Preserving metadata is particularly important for things like email and text messages, for which time and author are important to establish and may not be readily apparent from the content itself. The data must be protected both from accidental loss and corruption, and also from purposeful tampering.

Predictive coding is a computer algorithm used in electronic discovery to help manage the data that has been collected and stored. Predictive coding allows people to use keywords and concepts to sort through the data, much as a search filter would. The system is much more sophisticated than those used by search engines, for example. With a predictive coding system, users can "teach" the software to return better results. This is accomplished by informing the system as to whether the results were appropriate or not. This additional information allows the system to return better results until the user is satisfied with the information returned.

This is an in-house process at some firms. Others contract with outside e discovery companies as they do not have qualified professionals on staff to handle this complex and important process. These companies often employ IT professionals, as well as lawyers, to help create reliable data storage of electronic information, cull the data to eliminate duplicative information, and produce documents that can be more easily shared with the other people involved in the case.