Chapter 1 - Trends in Enterprise E-discovery from the Corporate Perspective

Abstract

E-discovery is a broad and encompassing topic. The enhancements, improvements, and other changes in corporate best practices are emerging on a near daily basis. Major areas where corporations are looking at e-discovery and changes to its landscape include: focus on litigation preparedness, emergence of better enterprise searches, centralization of e-discovery activities and actions, insourcing the e-discovery review process, emergence of folksonomies, record accessibility and retention policies, centralization of e-discovery activities and actions, and complications from “e-discovery trolls.” In corporations worldwide, but especially in the United States, there is an increased focus on being prepared to respond to and vigorously defend matters surrounding pending litigation. Particularly with regard to the recently amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and the new requirements in e-discovery, counsel and companies are paying new attention to both how to avoid and how to respond to lawsuits. New enterprise search platform features are emerging to integrate with litigation support software to help corporations get their arms around their data. These platforms are offering advances such as conceptual search, automatic categorization, and advanced algorithms. E-discovery trolls are emerging and making up a newly significant threat to firms. This really hinges on the emergence of the new FRCP code as it pertains to e-discovery. Folksonomic tagging allows users to create their own tags, which are freely chosen and not part of a strictly controlled vocabulary. This type of social tagging is sure to make e-discovery search and review efforts easier. The spiraling costs of e-discovery are prompting more corporate legal teams—the in-house counsel—to do more e-discovery work in-house. Another trend for e-discovery in the coming few years is automated review.