eDiscovery is a “Swiss army knife” and Cimplifi discusses several important considerations for litigation you need to know!

Their post (Why Use a Hammer When You Can Use a Swiss Army Knife?: Considerations for Litigation, available here) reminds us that (no surprise) litigation was the top use case being applied by respondents in the eDiscovery Today 2023 State of the Industry Report. 96.3% of 410 respondents use eDiscovery technology and workflows for litigation, so that means 3.7% of respondents don’t use it for litigation – further illustrating that eDiscovery isn’t just for litigation anymore. For some, it’s not for litigation at all!

eDiscovery has evolved considerably in recent years to support litigation (and eventually other use cases) and is continuing to evolve today and into the future in terms of workflows, best practices and leveraging technology to support litigation and much more. In fact, before the term “eDiscovery” was coined and during the early years when electronic information became in scope for discovery, the “eDiscovery” function was often lumped into the general category of “litigation support”.

Two things happened in 2005 that established electronic discovery as its own discipline. First, the US Supreme Court amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to include a category for electronic records. Additional rules changes in 2006 established parameters for cooperation (FRCP Rule 26(f) “meet and confer”), form of production (Rule 34(b)) and sanctions (Rule 37).

Additionally, the EDRM model was created in 2005, which reflected the phases of eDiscovery from Identification to Presentation and establish a widely adopted representation of a typical eDiscovery workflow.

So, how has eDiscovery evolved since those early years? And how is it continuing to evolve today? Find out here, it’s only one click! Better hurry before it evolves some more! 😉

So, what do you think? To how many use cases does your organization apply eDiscovery technology and workflows? Surely more than one, right? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “courtroom gavel and judge bench”.

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, 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.