The first phase of a study jointly commissioned by the eDiscovery Institute and Oracle (click here to read more) has shown that, while using technology assisted review will lower the cost of e-discovery, the “assisted” part is a key component in the equation.
The study involved a number of software manufacturers and lit support vendors each attempting to replicate document requests from real litigation where the producing party was confident that it produced all requested records. Some key findings included:
Clearly, using technology will help to reduce the cost of legal review, but the quality of that review is very dependent on who is using the technology. It is great to see that the courts are finally taking note of the obligation to negotiate a discovery plan in rendering decisions in Ontario discovery motion. In Khursheed v. Khoja [2013] O.J. No. 5086, Master Short ordered that the successful party’s costs were payable “in the Cause” rather than forthwith because the motion could have been avoided by negotiating a discovery plan.
Bottom line – do what the Rules mandate and negotiate a discovery plan in case you end up in court on a discovery motion. Information Governance (IG) is becoming a more familiar term around the company water cooler, but it doesn’t seem be discussed very much anywhere else in the corporate landscape. With the recent high profile data breeches, escalating e-discovery costs, and sanctions (in the U.S.) over poor legal holds, along with ever expanding digital volumes, why isn’t IG front and centre in the organization’s priorities?
There are a number of reasons why IG is difficult to get excited about:
So what’s a poor organization to do? Clearly, it’s necessary to get C-suite buy-in and figure out what incentive will entice each stakeholder. A plan that implements IG over time using small incremental changes is likely to achieve more than trying to ram IG down the corporate throat. |
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