Understanding the Processing Phase of eDiscovery

http://ow.ly/bNJAg

An article by Kevin L. Nichols posted on the JD Supra website.

This article provides tips for persons that fill various roles in the eDiscovery process, examining the role of the Litigation Support Professional (LSP); the Litigation Paralegal; and the Litigation Attorney.

The article states, "Many companies and law firms are savvy enough to process small volumes of data in-house, however, many matters require using a third-party vendor to facilitate these services. LSP’s are typically responsible for or should be responsible for the following:

• 1. Recommending a solution to handle the electronic evidence in the case, i.e. selecting to keep the data in-house or to use a third-party vendor;
• 2. Managing the request for proposal (RFP) process from at least 3 vendors to make a strong recommendation to the legal team of which vendor to use and why;
• 3. Reviewing and approving the statement of work (SOW);
• 4. Communicating the technical specifications/requirements to the attorneys in general and specifically the billing partner;
• 5. Preserving the metadata that existed before processing;
• 6. Maintaining the defensibility of the reduction of data;
• 7. Monitoring the production/delivery schedule and exception reporting;
• 8. Quality control checking (QC’ing) data to make sure that it was properly de-duped, de-nisted, etc.;
• 9. Determining which data proceeds to the next phase of the litigation cycle; and
• 10. Reporting results to the litigation team.".  

 The article provides further tips for the other roles discussed.