Extract from Justin Smith’s article “What Is ESI? A Practical Guide for Legal Teams”
The modern discovery process no longer starts with a physical search; it begins with a rush of digital data. In a single minute, the global workforce generates millions of emails, Slack messages, and cloud-based file edits. This relentless surge of data has fundamentally shifted the legal landscape, moving the smoking gun from the file cabinet to the cloud.
Today, the challenge for legal teams is not just finding the needle in the haystack—it is managing a haystack that grows by several gigabytes every hour. To navigate this complexity, cooperation between parties and a mastery of electronically stored information (ESI) are no longer optional; they are the bedrock of a defensible legal strategy.
ESI is any electronic information that is created, manipulated, communicated, stored, and best utilized in a digital format. As organizations continue moving their operations almost entirely to digital-first environments, ESI has become the heart of modern litigation and investigations. Understanding its nuances is a fundamental requirement for legal professionals to fulfill their duty of competence and handle discovery requests with ease.
