Understanding E-Discovery: Key Stages and Essential Software Tools (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello everyone and welcome back to Forensic Solutions, I hope you all are doing good. Recently we have uploaded a video on Attack Scenarios in Digital Forensic. I hope you have watched that video. Now you must have heard these terms like Mobile Forensic, Computer Forensic, Network Forensic in which we do investigation or analysis of piles of data. But sometimes it's not possible to investigate or analyze a whole pile of data. And have you heard about discovery? Ok so I am not talking about that discovery channel but I am talking about e-discovery. So let's just first see what is e-discovery. Electronic discovery also known as e-discovery is the electronic aspect of identifying, collecting, and producing electronically stored information in response to a request for production in a lawsuit or investigation. Now ESI what I said Electronic Stored Information, it is not limited to emails, documents, presentations, database, voicemail, audio and video files, social media, and websites. If I clear your definition then Electronic e-discovery means that you can produce electronically stored information in a lawsuit for the purpose of investigation. And now additionally unlike hard copy of evidence, electronic documents are more dynamic and often contain metadata such as time data, stamps, author and recipient information and file proportion. Now in e-discovery there is another term named as legal hold. After data is identified by the parties on both sides of a matter, potentially relevant documents including both electronic and hard copy materials are placed under a legal hold. Meaning they cannot be modified, deleted, erased or otherwise destroyed. Potentially relevant data is collected and then extracted, indexed and placed into a database. At this point, data is analyzed to cull or segregate the clearly non-relevant documents and emails. The data is then hosted in a secure environment and made accessible to reviewers who quote the documents for their relevance to the legal matter. The ultimate goal of e-discovery is to produce a core volume of evidence for investigation in a defensible manner. Now this is e-discovery. Now basically how does e-discovery work? There are basically 9 stages included in e-discovery. The very first stage is information governance. Information governance is an umbrella term to describe the procedure, controls and policies for data collection and preservation. Next comes the identification. When the litigation is imminent, all parties must attempt to preserve evidence. But how? Do you know what data to save? In the identification phase, a team determines what data must be preserved by interviewing key stakeholders, reviewing case facts and analyzing the digital environment. Next step comes is preservation. After data is identified, data owners are formally instructed to preserve the data. Next comes the collection. In collection, there are several technologies existed to collect data. But the chosen application would follow a defined legal process. Next comes the processing. The processing phase of e-discovery involves organizing data and finding the right asset for analysis. Next comes the review. Jab aapka pura collection ho gaya, processing ho gaya, then review documentation and digital assets can be done manually or by using AI. During the review stage, pertinent information is separated from unnecessary data that is not relevant for the ongoing litigation. Aapne pura data identify kar liya, preserve kar liya, collection ho gaya, phir aapne usko process ke liye kar liya, review mein aap ye review karte ho ki kaunsa data aapko relevant ho, kaunsa irrelevant ho. Next comes the analysis stage. In this stage, at the stage of e-discovery, digital assets become more organized for presentation. Next comes the production stage. After key data is identified, attorneys turn it into a presentable evidence. And next at the last stage comes is presentation. Evidence in litigation must be presented to other attorneys, judges, juries, mediators and deposition participants. Aap jaisa ki mene starting mein bataya tha aapko e-discovery software se related. As discussed, e-discovery is not that easy and it won't be possible for a human being to handle piles of data or documents. So here comes the role of e-discovery software. The nature of e-discovery software is to be designed to help with legal need, research and custom organization. E-discovery software is known to come with artificial intelligence and machine learning for automation and enhanced search and tagging functions. E-discovery platforms tend to be cloud-based or in-house, while on-premise solutions are less common. Some of the softwares are Logical, Everlaw, Ona, Intradent, Nextpoint, Digital War Room and Relativity. Yeh se tools hai e-discovery ke jahape aap investigation perform kar sakte hain so that you can put the matter in the court of law for the purpose of law or for the purpose of investigation. Agar aapko yeh softwares ke baarime aur details chahiye to aap please niche comment down kije we will put a next video on these softwares. And also yeh softwares ki saare link I am putting down in the description box. You can just view these softwares and can have a look that how these particular software works. So yeh hota hai e-discovery ke baarime. I hope aapko ek understanding mil gayi hogi iss se related. So thank you so much for watching. Stay safe, stay secure.