subject: Choosing An E-discovery Tool [print this page] Sifting through millions of documents to find the right ones necessary to comply with an electronic discovery request is becoming an increasingly common task for data custodians, such as storage administrators. Then, there is the Document Review process, which requires finding all documents that are relevant to a certain issue and eliminating those that are duplicates or not related to the case. Due to increased demands of electronic discovery, special tools have been developed for this purpose. However, an organization that is thinking of deploying such tools would need to ensure that they are adequate for their needs, as they would have different sets of features. Here are some of the things to consider when selecting a tool for you:
-Consider what your attorneys would ask you
IT personnel would essentially have a very important support task for your corporate counsel should there be a civil lawsuit. Your legal department may have some requirements about the types of documents that would be searched through, how these documents would be handled, which file format they would be presented in as well as ensuring that the chain of custody is preserved at all times. Therefore, working closely with your legal department when selecting a tool would be necessary.
-Select a tool that would allow annotations to be made on documents
Since an electronic discovery search would often involve millions of different documents, it is almost certain that many of these documents that would turn up in a search would be irrelevant to the case or otherwise not discoverable. Your legal team would need to have a convenient way of annotating documents in order to classify them. Therefore, choosing a software tool that would make this easy is highly recommended.
-Will predictive coding be supported?
There are many different ways that an electronic discovery tool can go through terabytes of information in order to find data that is relevant to the case. The most simple ones are keyword and parameter based searches, where the tool would locate documents that are based on certain keywords as well as other search parameters, like the date range when the document would have been created or the user that created it.
However, in order to accelerate the document review process and improve its accuracy, more advanced solutions are available which support predictive coding, which is the ability to find documents based on the context and not just exact keyword matches.
-Compare different solutions before making your choice
When it comes to a tool that is related to legal matters in your company, the right choice needs to be made. Therefore, multiple solutions from different vendors should first be considered before a final decision is made. This can increase the chances of your company selecting an electronic discovery tool that will really be suitable based on your own needs.
