This week’s blog post for IPRO’s blog is about early data assessment (EDA) and the question of is your early data assessment early enough?  Many people mistakenly refer to EDA as early case assessment, which is a completely different type of assessment.  Now, people are misunderstanding EDA for a completely different reason – where it’s happening.

The EDRM model has always represented the stages associated with electronic discovery, but the mechanics associated with those stages used to be different.  When we used to identify electronically stored information (ESI) for discovery, it was typically by identifying the custodians that possessed potentially responsive ESI.  When we used to preserve ESI, we did so by collecting it and collection typically involved collecting the entire ESI corpus for potentially responsive custodians.  Then (and only then) did you begin to assess your data from an EDA standpoint.  The left side of the EDRM model was the proverbial “shoot first, ask questions later” method of discovery.  You needed to collect broadly, making sure you had everything that was possibly responsive to the case, then put it into a review platform and sort it out from there.  As data volumes have grown, that approach has become no longer viable and a paradigm shift was necessary.

So, what was the paradigm shift that has actually made early data assessment early?  How have the enterprise-wide systems you use every day factored in?  And why is there a Dr. Pepper logo on today’s post?  Hint: it ties into their tagline of the 70’s!  You can find out on Ipro’s blog here. 😉  It’s just one more click!

So, what do you think?  Is your early data assessment early enough?  You may think differently after you read the post.  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.