E-Discovery: T H E K M K A PPROACH
The Issues Whether your organization faces litigation on a regular basis or you seek to get ahead of the curve with litigation readiness and information governance issues, E-Discovery is now an important item on every corporate legal team’s agenda. By most counts, Electronically Stored Information (ESI) doubles if not triples every year.1 Organizations as well as their employees, customers, and vendors have a plethora of places and ways to store, manage, and access data—from traditional hard-copy document folders in file cabinets to vast email server farms to proprietary systems and applications containing a variety of data (i.e., financial, supply chain management, manufacturing, health care records, etc.) to data contained on social media platforms, smart phones, instant messages, and now virtual storage clouds. Consequently, when organizations face litigation they can find themselves trying to search, retrieve, cull, prioritize, and organize much more information than they ultimately need. The time spent reviewing irrelevant data often results in unnecessarily higher litigation costs. The complexities and nuances surrounding E-Discovery introduce some valid business concerns:
“KMK’s litigation team helped us with several document intensive lawsuits in recent years, and their representation, advice and assistance, especially regarding e-discovery issues, was invaluable. We chose to utilize KMK’s Ringtail document management system for several cases, which turned out to be a cost efficient way to organize, locate, review, manage and produce documents from KMK, our office, or any remote location, with little or no duplication of effort. Use of Ringtail, along with KMK’s litigation expertise, gave us the confidence we needed to meet the challenges of the litigation process.” – Stephen Herzog, Esq. Assistant General Counsel Cincom Systems, Inc. Cincinnati, OH
• The quantity of electronic data can be immense. Large volumes of data can result in significant expense unless you have an effective strategy, process, tools, and experience to manage it.
• Electronic data alone can be complex to collect, import, and convert. Add to that the task of preserving metadata (file system field data such as date and time values, file names, native file applications, hash values, document authors, and sender and recipient information) and it becomes all the more complicated to eliminate claims of spoliation or tampering of evidence. • Choosing the right vendor and negotiating competitive pricing can be difficult if you do not have the experience and knowledge to understand the scope of the project at hand and an understanding of how the project may progress as data is uncovered. Regardless of your budget, the number of cases you face, or the size of your organization, KMK will help to ensure that your E-Discovery investment is wisely spent and that you are successful in obtaining the desired results in the most efficient manner. Catherine A. Casey and Alejandra P. Perez, “National Law Journal Special Report: The Rising Tide of Nonlinear Review,” The National Law Journal (June 2011). 1
E-Discovery Services: • Information Governance & Risk Management Consulting • Litigation Readiness & Litigation Hold Policy and Procedure Implementation • Case-by-Case Budgeting & Project Management Principles • Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Best Practices Implementation • Electronically Stored Information (ESI) Data Mapping Strategy and Implementation • Managed Review Services & Project Management Principles Via our Fullyscalable, Secure Review Center • In-house Early Case Assessment (ECA), Electronic Data Discovery (EDD) Processing, and Full-Scale Electronic Document Productions