Understanding E-Discovery

More than 99% of the world’s information is currently created electronically, and nearly every piece of electronically stored information (ESI) is potentially discoverable in a civil lawsuit. In an average case today, the process of exchanging ESI with an opposing party (known generally as electronic discovery or “e-discovery”) can mean processing, reviewing and producing potentially millions of pages of electronic documents. According to one estimate, a “midsize” lawsuit is now expected to generate between $2.5 and $3.5 million in e-discovery costs alone. E-discovery, according to one commentator, “represents the greatest sea change in the practice of law in recent memory.

States Move Toward the Center on IT -- Finally

Some states are moving to consolidate and better integrate their systems is to comply with new electronic-discovery legislation. For instance, the sate of Washington is deploying a unified e-mail archiving system from Symantec Corp. and later this year plans to seek bids on tools for searching the archives, said Gary Robinson, the state’s CIO. Robinson led the preparation of an “impact statement” on e-discovery that the NASCIO released last week.