early case assessment: the benefit is in the eye of the...
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Early Case Assessment: The Benefit Is in the Eye of the
BeholderScott M. Cohen
Director, E-Discovery Support Services | Winston & Strawn LLP
Tom MorriseySr. Director, IT Litigation | Purdue Pharma LP
Chuck KellnerE-Discovery Strategist
Greg BucklesConsultant | Reason-eD LLC | eDiscoveryJournal
Duane Lites (Moderator)Director, Litigation Support | Jackson Walker LLP
What is early case assessment? Depending on how you look at it, ECA can
mean several things.
• Law Firm
• Corporate
• Vendor
• Consultant
How Do You Define ECA?
Law Firm
How Do You Define ECA?
• Initial consideration of the facts of the case, its legal merits, possible defensive/offensive strategies and its potential for business interruption.
• Analysis and evaluation of the electronically stored information collected (or to be collected) during the discovery phase of litigation
Corporate
How Do You Define ECA?
• Risk Assessment• Value to the Company• Reduction in scope
Consultant
How Do You Define ECA?
• Identification as a business process
• Workflow-Defined, documented and tested
• Technology to search and analyze in the wild
• Letting the ESI speak for itself
Service Provider
How Do You Define ECA?
A process by which a client and its legal team can:
• Evaluate potential risks of litigation based upon identifiable key facts
• Evaluate cost of discovery and other cost factors of the litigation
• Utilize metrics to help minimize litigation size, cost and risk.
ECA - Corporate
Goal / Objective
• Risk Assessment
• Identify value of case from a business perspective
• Bet the Business
ECA - Corporate
Tools / Methods
• Know your business (or that of your client)
• Historical data can provide insight
• Define/Contain Scope
• Assess costs of case
Benefits
ECA – Corporate
• Reduce scope and thereby reduce spend…
Effective Legal Holds on Email Archive
ECA - Consultant
Goal / Objective
Tools / Methods
• Targeted searches
• Frequency reports
• Sampling
• Criteria tests
Hold potential relevant (15%)
vs.
All custodial email (100%)
Minimize business/IT impact
ECA - Consultant
Benefits
ClientClient’’s Goals s Goals
& Strategy& Strategy
Identify Key Identify Key
FactsFacts
Costs, Metrics Costs, Metrics
& Reports& Reports
Defensible Defensible
Search Search
MethodologyMethodology
Goals for ECA Service Provider
ECA Vendor Tools and Methods
Tightly Integrated WorkflowTightly Integrated WorkflowTightly Integrated Workflow
Iterative & Documented Search
Iterative & Iterative &
Documented Documented
SearchSearch
Client & IT Client & IT
Interview Interview
SkillsSkills
• Connectors
• DeNISTing
• Processing
• Text Extraction
• Indexing
• Formatting
• Forensic Transparency
• ConnectorsConnectors
•• DeNISTingDeNISTing
•• ProcessingProcessing
•• Text ExtractionText Extraction
•• IndexingIndexing
•• FormattingFormatting
•• Forensic Forensic
TransparencyTransparency
ECA – Service Provider
Benefits
Legal team uses several tools and skills to execute this process including:
• Interview skills
• Information management and database tools
• Analytical tools, including cost and search analysis
• Negotiation skills
Goal / Objective
ECA – Law Firm
Given an enormous amount of corporate
server data, leverage ECA software tools
and methodologies to defensibly identify
potentially relevant, non-privileged ESI while
eliminating non-relevant material in support
of regulatory investigation.
Tools / Methods
ECA – Law Firm
ECA product used to perform:
• Key term/phrase analysis
• Email analysis (domain, conversations, date distribution)
• Custodian analysis
• De-nisting
• File-type filtering
Benefits
ECA – Law Firm
• Over 90 % reduction in review volume resulting in substantial time and cost savings
• Fast identification of potentially privileged documents
• Identification of additional custodians based upon initial searches
Questions
Early Case Assessment: The Benefit Is in the Eye of the
BeholderScott M. Cohen
Director, E-Discovery Support Services | Winston & Strawn [email protected]
Tom MorriseySr. Director, IT Litigation | Purdue Pharma LP
Chuck KellnerE-Discovery Strategist
Greg BucklesConsultant | Reason-eD LLC | eDiscoveryJournal
Duane Lites (Moderator)Director, Litigation Support | Jackson Walker LLP