Thought Leadership and Industry Trends
COVID-19 has disrupted almost all normal business practices, making many activities challenging to handle virtually. Fortunately, eDiscovery can largely continue on pace, thanks to technology and remote collection workflows. Shifting to fully remote or socially distanced collections, whether to accommodate shelter-in-place orders or employee safety concerns, is achievable in most circumstances.
Long before starting formal discovery, an internal investigation should be launched so a party and their counsel can understand and assess the information ecosystem, identify sources of potentially relevant information and examine these sources via sampling. Although a litigant may not be required to produce the information found, it is crucial that pre-litigation investigation be handled appropriately to ensure it is accurate.
Mobile data is one of the most rapidly proliferating data sources in the eDiscovery realm and is gaining more significance daily. It presents unique challenges, such as securing authorization to access devices, rapidly evolving encryption features, wildly varying content formatting, device upgrades, and other issues.
Email retention just got harder thanks to functionality introduced by Google for personal Gmail and GSuite users. With a nod to apps like WhatsApp and Signal which allow chats to disappear, Google is allowing its users to send confidential emails that are protecting with a passcode and will be deleted after a set period of time (aka ephemeral messaging).
The federal government, like many private companies, is focusing on cybersecurity and data privacy to a greater extent than ever before. As a result, companies and law firms should proactively consider using eDiscovery service providers with FedRAMP certification when completing eDiscovery involving federal documents.
Google recently announced that it would be adding a new feature to its Gmail offering that would automatically update emails stored in users’ mailboxes.
The good news for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) is that there are a lot of free and inexpensive productivity and communication tools available to help them run their businesses.
