InsideCounsel Roundtable - May 2010 - 3

Roundtable
With the help of technology, the two geographically distant groups were able to share and discuss the challenges the discovery data deluge and technology have presented— how exploding amounts of data, emerging case law, pressure from outside counsel and amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have contributed to the difficulties corporate legal departments face. In many regards, technology has made life Last February, when e-Discovery Institute’s Co-Founder and General Counsel Patrick Oot and InsideCounsel invited nine in-house discovery counsel to identify their disparate and shared challenges, it was the Telepresence conference system of Cisco Systems Inc. that brought the sunshine of San Jose together with the snowy slush of New York City. more difficult when it comes to e-discovery. But in this instance, technology made possible a real time roundtable experience without the expense and time involved with travel.

When everyone on your eDiscovery team—including IT and technical staff—have a basic understanding of the key legal issues they can minimize the inherent risks related to the performance of their duties. Understanding these legal issues will not only improve performance but reduce risk and costs. This doesn’t mean they need to be reading Judge Scheindlin’s latest eDiscovery decision, that’s the lawyer’s job. This key legal issues include: •	 Addressing where 80-90% of the risk occurs— preservation •	 Integrating legal hold and collection to automate and enforce legal holds •	 The importance of authentication and chain of custody •	 Indentifying sources beyond email that are potentially relevant ESI •	 Avoiding adverse inferences or sanctions through proper metadata preservation •	 Reducing costs and identifying privileged ESI through targeted search and collection •	 Training and certification

In my experience, the best way to teach this complex area of law is to start simply. We’ve received a lot of good feedback on a concise eDiscovery primer used for training for eDiscovery teams implementing our EnCase eDiscovery software in-house. It’s called: “The Seven Best Practices of Highly Effective eDiscovery Practitioners” (you can download it at: www.guidancesoftware.com/ eDiscoverySuccess) It’s a good guide on legal issues and best practices, and the feedback is that it provides insight on how they and other members of the eDiscovery team can achieve a repeatable, defensible inhouse eDiscovery process. 

Patrick Zeller, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Guidance Software, Inc.

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InsideCounsel Roundtable - May 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of InsideCounsel Roundtable - May 2010
