Real World eDiscovery – Not Seen On TV

I’m not a lawyer. But I often wonder if lawyers watch TV legal dramas like Law & Order (the original or any of the many spin-offs we now have to choose from) and think to themselves, “Really, if it were only that simple.” Or maybe it’s more like, “Jack McCoy (played by Sam Waterson) you wouldn’t last a day prosecuting a real legal matter.” They make it look so easy. You find the evidence. You arrest the bad guy. You convict the bad guy. Case closed. What’s so hard about that? In the real word, a lot actually.

Working for an information management company I might be a bit jaded toward the lack of visibility TV dramas provide into the discovery process. However I do know it’s unlikely you’re going to find key evidence or a “smoking gun” wadded up in a trash can in the bad guy’s office – though it seems to happen a lot on TV. No, more than likely you are going to have to wade through terabytes or even petabyes of electronic data from multiple custodians spread across email, file shares, laptops, document management systems, etc.  Your first thoughts are probably, “How long is this going to take and how much is it going to cost?”

Organizations must expect the unexpected and be prepared to deal with several concurrent matters with varying electronic discovery requirements. In a recent whitepaper from Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, he discusses the often unpredictable and challenging eDiscovery process – and the opportunities that in-house eDiscovery solutions provide for real world improvement including:

• Incorporate All Data – ensure that your eDiscovery solution is comprehensive and goes beyond email to include other corporate ESI sources – locating the data you need to make informed case strategy decisions and minimizing your risk for non-disclosure sanctions.

• Timeliness Matter – other than meeting tight deadlines, organizations can benefit from speeding up the eDiscovery process by meeting the duty to preserve early, more accurately predicting case budgets, preparing for initial case assessments, and reducing reliance on outsourced review resources when pressed for time.

• Resource Scalability – utilizing a holistic eDiscovery solution, corporations can ensure that all departments and users involved in the legal discovery process are not overburdened by disparate tools and technologies, and that productivity isn’t impacted as the amount of corporate information and number of matters continues to grow.

As Mr. Babineau states in the paper, “Electronic discovery, when supported by the right technology has the potential to deliver benefits greater than a simple reduction of legal service provider costs. Corporate counsel can near-instantaneously analyze data to see what should be collected and preserved, enabling them to make strategic decisions sooner in the legal process, and swiftly adapt as new information is discovered.”

Perhaps as more organizations adopt in-house eDiscovery solutions, the legal discovery process will become more intelligent, less cumbersome, and less costly. And who knows, one day it may start to resemble the legal dramas we watch on TV. 

For more in-depth information, download the complete whitepaper from Enterprise Strategy Group.

Meet Healthcare Compliance Mandates and Manage Risk with a Solid Information Management Strategy and Solution

The health care industry is challenged with a huge and rapidly growing volume of patient records, emails, reports, prescriptions, insurance documents and other information – all of which have to be properly managed and stored in accordance with compliance regulations such as HIPAA. Meeting these mandates requires that organizations maintain strict governance over the privacy, security and long-term archiving of patient records and other health care-related information. And now with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injecting billions into health information technology projects, including stimulus funds for the adoption of Electronic Health Records technology (EHR), much more health care information will be in electronic form.

The inherently litigious environment of the health care industry, exponentially-increasing amounts of data, compounded with strict compliance requirements, are forcing hospitals and health care providers to get a better handle on their electronic information. This is not without its challenges, according to a recent article in FierceEMR, “EHR implementations open ‘cans of compliance worms,’” which discusses decisions and issues that need to be addressed when adopting EHR technology.

In the article, Cheryl Rice, VP and chief corporate responsibility officer for Cincinnati-based Catholic Health care Partners notes that one of the ‘four pressing issues’ hospitals face while converting to EHRs is audits and litigation defense. This speaks to the growing amount of discoverable information held in EHR systems, which means it is important that as health care providers increase their use of EHR systems, they also implement an information management and proactive eDiscovery solution, to help ensure compliance, and reduce litigation.

StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Platform has helped many companies – including a leading health care provider – address enterprise-level information management. With our auditable solution, companies can automate their records retention and disposition strategy to comply with corporate information governance guidelines (IP, HR, trade secrets, etc.), as well as regulatory compliance mandates (PII, PCI, HIPAA, etc.) – reducing overall risk and cost. StoredIQ provides health care organizations with a range of business-critical benefits, including the ability to:

• Comply with corporate policy and government regulations
• Reduce risk, preempt litigation and avoid fines
• Protect sensitive, business-critical information
• Automate management of storage and retention policies
• Optimize storage and delete unnecessary information

As the health care industry moves toward greater use of electronic medical records, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies – any organization that is managing patient information – should have a solution that helps meet escalating compliance requirements, mitigate risk and minimize cost.

For more information on StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Solution email info@storediq.com.

Take an Offensive Approach to Defensible eDiscovery

In a recent eDiscovery Journal article, Barry Murphy discusses the challenges of implementing defensible collection, and presents guidelines for how organizations can incorporate eDiscovery into their broader information management programs.

Murphy suggests viewing eDiscovery as an integral part of the organization’s infrastructure. He says, “Ideally, the right collection tool will provide a single interface to search across all information sources, connectors to the most important information sources (and the ability to easily connect to more as needed), and the scalability to parse through a large volume of information.”

At StoredIQ we understand the critical need for legally defensible eDiscovery. Our Intelligent eDiscovery solution allows organizations to take control of their unstructured data enterprise-wide, providing visibility and control over all their business content, and enabling better business decisions, while reducing costs, and lowering legal risks. StoredIQ provides a seamless, defensible approach to eDiscovery, with rapid response to litigation and investigations, allowing organizations to:

• Locate all potentially relevant electronically stored information
• Search and analyze data without moving it from its native environment
• Manage potentially relevant documents in a legally defensible manner
• Generate customizable reports and detailed data topology maps leveraging advanced analytics

Often times, the eDiscovery process is too fragmented, and in order to perform identification, collection, preservation, analysis and processing, legal IT teams need to use three or even more stand-alone applications. But at StoredIQ we’ve addressed this problem, with one solution that not only accesses all your data sources across the enterprise without requiring additional interceding hardware or gateways, but also covers a wide range of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), including Information Management, Identification, Collection, Preservation, Analysis, and Processing – including the ability to conduct early case assessment “in the wild” with no movement of data.

In sports there is a saying that goes something like this.  Often, the best defense is a great offense.  By proactively implementing an eDiscovery solution that can cover multiple phases of EDRM, organizations can take the offensive in reducing costs and mitigating legal and compliance risks.   That sounds like any party taking that approach will have the upper hand should they find themselves in a legal situation.