Extract from Jeremy Greer’s article “ESI Discovery Protocol – What To Include”
An Electronically Stored Information (ESI) Protocol is a negotiated agreement between parties in litigation that governs how relevant electronic documents will be identified, preserved, collected, processed, reviewed, and produced to the opposing party. e Discovery related negotiations typically occur during the FRCP 26(f) Meet and Confer Conference of the Parties (or State equivalent). Courts and case law have made clear that these discussions are ongoing and can even occur in a more informal manner via email, etc. Regardless, the negotiated ESI protocol and relevant deadlines (court provided or otherwise) are binding.
The discovery process is dynamic, unpredictable, and doesn’t follow a linear pattern. Throughout the early stages of discovery, we generally recommend taking steps towards understanding the data in question. There’s no one way to approach your project, and you may even find yourself having to return to earlier stages and brining in more data as your understanding of the data corpus changes.
