Early Case Assessment in the eDiscovery Process
Early case assessment (ECA) is the process of gathering case information soon after becoming aware of a legal matter. ECA is a crucial step, since it provides a mechanism for legal departments and their outside counsel to evaluate the potential costs and risk exposure associated with a case.
The ECA process varies somewhat from one legal matter to the next, depending on case specifics. Generally, it involves quantifying the amount of data to be analyzed during eDiscovery, identifying relevant search terms and keywords, and estimating expenses and potential legal liability.
Ideally, the outcome of ECA is an informed decision about whether to proceed with eDiscovery and trial preparation, or to instead enter into settlement negotiations with the opposing party, thereby avoiding the expense and time associated with litigation preparation. When moving ahead with trial preparation, ECA helps legal departments and their outside counsel narrow the scope of eDiscovery and prioritize documents for review.
While the specific ECA strategy depends on the legal issues involved in the case, there are some common steps in the process:
- Identifying key players and key places where data is located.
- Interviewing data custodians to learn more about data collection and storage.
- Estimating the amounts and types of data to be evaluated.
- Sampling data to estimate the size and cost involved in processing and reviewing the information.
- Leveraging data analytics tools to evaluate raw data, estimating the amounts and types of data to be evaluated.
- Categorizing the output into user-friendly reports.
Trying to collect all of the potentially relevant data at the outset of a case is simply not an efficient use of resources. ECA gives firms the ability to limit costs by analyzing small amounts of data, expanding the scope of the review only if necessary. ECA should ultimately provide a legal department and its outside counsel with cost estimates associated with litigating a matter, so they can make an informed decision about how to proceed.
Baer Reed provides a variety of business and legal services to law firms and corporate legal departments, including early case assessment and eDiscovery support services. To learn more, contact us today.
- On December 16, 2019
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