Extract from Ari Perlstein’s article “Taming Modern Data Challenges: Linked Documents”
One of the biggest and most discussed modern data challenges that legal and eDiscovery professionals face today is discovery of linked documents. Documents that were historically sent as physical attachments to an email or other communication are now more frequently linked from another source, creating an enormous challenge in preserving and collecting that ESI. Opinions vary widely regarding treatment of these files in discovery and even what they should be called.
A common question we hear is: Do I need to collect linked documents? And if so, do I need to show how they relate to the parent message? The short answer is: it depends. If you don’t have to go down that path, don’t. It’s technically complex, and once you start linking documents to parent messages, you’ll face a host of decisions—each with trade-offs. In light of evolving case law on this issue, there are multiple ways to establish those relationships.
Given how this topic has captivated the legal and eDiscovery communities, we will discuss the reason that linked documents present such a challenge, the dispute over their nomenclature, and the historical collection challenges associated with them.
