Well, that’s refreshing! 😉 Craig Ball has released a refresh of the Annotated ESI Protocol that illustrates just how fast things are changing in eDiscovery!

Craig’s blog post a few days ago titled (wait for it!) A Refresh of the Annotated ESI Protocol (available here) discusses how, three years after the release of The Annotated ESI Protocol in January 2023, he’s releasing a substantially revised edition because the evidence has changed, and the protocols we negotiate need to change with it. The tools custodians use to communicate and collaborate in 2026 look materially different from just a few years ago, and the revised Annotated ESI Protocol seeks to address what we must accomplish today.

As Craig notes: “The biggest changes are additions.” Craig has added new sections for modern evidence types, including:

• Modern Attachments: This new section addresses cloud-hosted documents sent via pointers or links rather than embedded files. It includes an “exemplar provision distinguishing genuine substitute-attachments” from mere references, establishes point-in-time versioning obligations based on current tool capabilities, and sets a meet-and-confer trigger for cases “where historical-version recovery genuinely matters”.
• Collaboration Platforms: A dedicated section for Slack, Teams, and Google Chat data requires native exports, human-readable rendered transcripts, and separately produced attachments. These requirements include proportionality qualifiers based on the producing party’s specific tooling.
• Mobile and Ephemeral Messaging: The protocol now utilizes a tiered approach for mobile data. Consumer-grade tools (like iMazing) are deemed acceptable for standard cases, while forensic-grade collections (such as Cellebrite or AXIOM) are reserved for matters involving alleged spoliation or device-integrity disputes.
• Audio, Video, and Voicemail: The update adds specific language regarding native-production for these formats.
• Foreign-Language Materials: An exemplar provision has been added to address foreign-language ESI, a topic previously flagged but not detailed in the 2023 edition.

While Craig notes that “A hybridized TIFF+ exemplar remains the primary form of production, because that’s what most institutional litigation still demands and a protocol that pretends otherwise won’t get traction”, he also notes that “the carve-outs for native production have grown to cover spreadsheets, presentations, databases, photographs, audio, video, short messages, mobile messages, structured-data exports, CAD, and anything else that doesn’t reduce sensibly to a static page image.”

How are those carve-outs manifested? “Addendum A addressing load file metadata production has expanded from twenty-seven fields to roughly sixty, organized into eleven labeled subsections covering the new evidence types, with explicit fields for collection-tool disclosure, modern-attachment metadata, conversation identifiers, edit and deletion flags, and platform tier.”

And here’s another sign of the times, even for an expert like Craig: “Thanks to the vigilance of my crack AI editor, a handful of drafting glitches in the 2023 edition are fixed.”

Craig’s refresh of the Annotated ESI Protocol is more than 50% larger than the original (which we covered here back when it was released) – 50 pages vs. the original 33 pages – so I can’t possibly do justice to all the changes that he made in the refresh. I can only say check it out here.

Additionally, Craig notes this: “If you’re interested in ESI Protocols and want to contribute your experience to an EDRM effort to frame a path to consensus protocols, please share your interest at https://edrm.net/edrm-projects/esi-protocol/”. Craig and David Cohen are trustees on that project, which means it’s in excellent hands! 😊

So, what do you think? Do you feel your ESI protocol template is up to date? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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.