Proactive eDiscovery: Managing Enterprise Information — Part 1

September 9, 2008

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•Contributed Editorial: Proactive eDiscovery Managing Enterprise Information — Part 1
•ContributedEditorial: Proactive eDiscovery: Managing Enterprise Information — Part 2

By Ursula Talley, StoredIQ

Companies of all sizes are facing increased litigation risks and costs today. A great way to reduce those risks and costs is by adopting a proactive eDiscovery approach. If you're not sure what "proactive" eDiscovery means, this article not only offers a good definition, but also explains the trends that make proactive eDiscovery inevitable, how to implement a proactive solution that can save you money, and how to get started now.

"Discovery" is the legal process that all companies facing lawsuits are required to go through in order to produce relevant documents for the court to consider. Generally, any company with $1B in revenue faces multiple legal matters. They may be spurious, or legitimate—but for good-sized companies, they're inevitable. What's notable is that those companies spend between $2.5 million and $4 million a year on legal discovery of electronic files alone.

Couple the explosive data growth with the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and you realize that companies need to pay attention – as UBS Warburg and Merck learned – paying $29.2M and $253M respectively for non-compliance in litigation that required eDiscovery of documents.