Extract from Rhys Dipshan’s article “No Simple Way Forward: Inside E-Discovery’s Collaboration Data Problem”
For veteran e-discovery professionals, the recent explosion of potentially responsive collaboration data in organizations is an all-too familiar problem. “I remember 20 years ago we were sort of in the same spot with the ‘new’ email—in other words, we were trying to figure out how to search collect, preserve, then review and produce email,” says Brett Burney, principal at Burney Consultants. “Well, today I typically talk about text messaging, social media [and] collaboration platforms as sort of the new email,” he added.
And like “old” email before it, there’s few that doubt e-discovery will likely one day be able to tame these new data types. But many also know the road ahead will be far from easy. At the “Collaboration Data in the Wild: Streamlining Early Case Assessment and eDiscovery for Slack, Teams, and Workplace Data” session of the virtual Legalweek(year) 2021 conference, Burney and several e-discovery professionals dove into just why data from collaboration and social media tools will push e-discovery to significantly evolve.
To be sure, as far as courts are concerned, the fact that data from collaboration tools is discoverable is basically a forgone conclusion.
