Information Management Blog

By Josef Elliott

There is a school of thought that all new “stuff” is invented in California and slowly migrates eastwards stopping only briefly on our shores on the way to mainland Europe, Asia and The Orient.  Let us for a moment consider the progress of e-Discovery and accept the fact that it is growing significantly in this country and is with us to stay.   Add to that the enormous costs involved -  Microsoft, it is claimed, spends $20m on e-Discovery per litigation (see article) – and it soon becomes obvious that all major organisations should be looking at ways of preparing themselves for this onerous task and working out how they can keep the costs down. 

Some of the most interesting thinking in the e-Discovery space is being done on the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (www.edrm.net).  To quote from the site:

“Launched in May 2005, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project was created to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market - a problem identified in the 2003 and 2004 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery surveys as a major concern for vendors and consumers alike. The completed reference model provides a common, flexible and extensible framework for the development, selection, evaluation and use of electronic discovery products and services. The completed model was placed in the public domain in May 2006”

And the model looks like this: 

Now look at the first box – Information Management.  The great irony of this model is that it assumes that we are all managing our information before we embark on the e-Discovery exercise.  If this was the case, then our costs would be much lower.   E-Discovery costs are so high because most organisations do not have robust Information Management practices in place prior to a piece of litigation hitting.  Surely it’s better to spend more time managing information in order to save money identifying, preserving, collecting, processing, reviewing, analysing, producing and presenting?

Comments as always are welcomed.