There are at least five considerations for discovery of chat and collaboration app discovery as this post from Cimplifi discusses.

Their latest post in the “Getting the Message” series (Getting the Message: Considerations for Discovery of Evidence from Chat/Collaboration Apps, available here) not only discusses five considerations for chat and collaboration app discovery, it also discusses four best practices for chat and collaboration app discovery as well! Here’s one of the considerations:

Finding the Data

As is the case with most platforms used for communication or work product generation, the search capabilities for most collaboration apps are somewhat limited for discovery, making it difficult to pinpoint specific communications and content that may be responsive to the case. As a result, you may need to collect more broadly to ensure your collection is as inclusive of potentially responsive evidence as possible.

And here’s one of the best practices for chat and collaboration app discovery:

Develop a Plan Up Front

To start with, you need to develop a plan up front for how discovery will be conducted for each chat/collaboration app. Each plan should address the nuances associated with finding, collecting, converting and presenting the data in discovery and should be tested to confirm viability. Having a tested, documented plan will also make your process more defensible if there are discovery disputes. As we’ll discuss in our next post, case law has shown that courts will expect parties to produce data from these apps in discovery – and penalize them severely when they fail to do so.

What are the other four of five considerations for chat and collaboration app discovery and what are the other three best practices? Find out here! It’s only one more click! 😉

So, what do you think? What considerations and best practices does your team have for chat/collaboration app discovery? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclosure: Cimplifi is an Educational Partner and sponsor of eDiscovery Today

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer 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.