Discovery Resources

by Nancy Patton, Fios Professional Services, Fios, Inc.

It’s not an original concept to say that successful business systems are built on a foundation of people, process and technology.  Also not surprising are the difficulties that arise when addressing the “people” part of the equation, and especially in regard to e-discovery.  Although a company may have stellar processes and state-of-the art technologies to address its e-discovery obligations, they may be for nought without the right people in place to implement them.

When an organization receives notification of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation, one of the first concerns the legal department should consider is whether or not it will be able to successfully and effectively respond to a request to produce potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI).

Typically, the initial response is a collective wrenching of the gut, particularly in the absence of having an established, interdepartmental team to manage e-discovery. While many organizations realize the need for (and are striving to establish) such a team, more often the e-discovery response process is handled on a case-by-case basis. Not uncommonly, this case-by-case approach quickly takes on the characteristics of a fire drill, as opposed to an organized business process. The difference between an ad hoc and an organized approach to managing e-Discovery could be worth millions of dollars to an organization.

The emergence of formal Discovery Response Teams over the last couple of years is representative of the rapidly growing need to manage an organization’s ESI for litigation and regulatory purposes.  The Discovery Response Team’s primary responsibility, as you might expect, is to execute the organization’s discovery response plan. This plan typically has three basic and familiar elements: repeatable business processes for managing ESI, appropriate technologies that facilitate the management of ESI, and the people who use the technology and implement the processes. The discovery response team is ideally comprised of key members from the legal, IT, records management and compliance departments. It’s this team that implements the plan and is critical to ensuring success across the full spectrum of legal matters.

It’s important to understand that an effective Discovery Response Team has two different but equally important purposes with regard to e-discovery:  to provide process governance and oversight, and facilitate consistency across the entire organization; and to provide day-to-day assistance with specific legal matters, if requested or required.  The next two posts in this series will further discuss these purposes, and detail the four key steps that will assure an effective Discovery Response Team.

Filed under Discerning e-Discovery, Home Page Latest.

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