Extract from Onna’s article “The complete guide to modern eDiscovery”
The evolution of eDiscovery over the years has been nothing short of transformative. From reams of paper stuffed into bankers’ boxes, we quickly moved to data housed on hard drives, and then to internal servers. Fast forward less than twenty years, and more than half of all corporate data now lives in the cloud, dispersed across a multitude of collaboration, communication, and content applications (think: instant communication tools like Slack, document management platforms like Google Docs, and issue tracking and project management tools like Jira).
The role of eDiscovery has also broadened significantly in this time. It’s no longer merely a supporting actor in litigation but has become an indispensable player in regulatory activities, records management, data privacy, and information governance.
However, one challenge remains consistent: the overwhelming volume and diversity of data involved in eDiscovery. Even before the global surge in online activity triggered by the pandemic, organizations and legal professionals were wrestling with massive amounts of enterprise data spread across disparate locations — whether it was in file cabinets, traditional email servers, or on Jane from HR’s desk.
Complicating the issue further, over 90% of all newly generated enterprise data is unstructured — lacking any predefined format or model — with this percentage growing by a staggering 55 to 65 percent annually.
Adding to the complexity, court decisions and rules surrounding this data create new precedents, prompting organizations to rethink their approach to discovery altogether and placing the responsibility on legal professionals to tackle the search, collection, analysis, review, and production f such data, all within the confines of tight budgets and limited headcount. A walk in the park, isn’t it?
