Litigation Management

e-Discovery -- Digital Analysis of e-Data

Paper Discovery -- Digital Analysis of Paper Data

Computer Forensics -- Recovery of Lost e-Data

We partner with Kroll Ontrack to provide electronic discovery, paper discovery, and computer forensic solutions for complex litigation and regulatory matters.  With nearly 20 years of experience, Kroll Ontrack is the leading provider of services and software to help law firms, financial institutions, corporations, and government agencies restore, produce, manage, and review information for legal matters.

The Digital Age Is Here-Take Advantage, Don't Become A Victim:

The days are gone when electronic record keeping and e-Discovery were luxuries for only the most sophisticated large businesses and law firms.  Digital record keeping is a fact of business life, and e-Discovery, e-Compliance and e-Filing is increasingly mandatory -- and cost and result effective for those who know how to use it.

Increasing numbers of businesses are keeping most, if not all, of their records in digital format; courts are increasingly accepting evidence in digital formats, compelling e-Discovery procedures, mandating e-Filing, and awarding sanctions against those who cannot comply.

See our Digital Law Primer for an overview and collection of authorities on digital evidence, discovery and compliance.  For an example of what not to do, read about Microsoft's Scorched Earth e-Mail Policy.

As digital users and e-Data volumes increase, the incidence of inadvertent (or contrived) computer system failures will correspondingly increase, perhaps by your client or business or perhaps by your opponent in litigation.

These developments bring into play the need for -- and strategic advantages of -- retention and recovery, and at times reconstruction of, digital records.

A properly designed regulatory e-Compliance system can facilitate litigation discovery, as well as help avoid administrative fines.

e-Filing makes your litigation work easier, once you master the basics.

How We Can Help You With Litigation Management:

We have undertaken an extensive study of the emerging law and technologies concerning e-Data, and concluded that to be successful, one should have a firm grasp of the applicable principles and use the best available technology.  With can help you with both essential prongs of e-Discovery.

Discovery Perspectives:

Document discovery represents 50 percent of the litigation costs in the average case and up to 90 percent of the costs in an active discovery case.  e-Discovery technology can help you reduce these costs, and increase client results and satisfaction.

Here’s some statistics to put e-Discovery in perspective:

·         93% of all information is now created digitally – only 7% is created via paper

·         70% of e-Documents are never printed – ignoring e-Data is like omitting 7 of 10 file cabinets from the relevant document universe

·         Ignoring the paper documents is like omitting 3 of 10 file cabinets – both must be considered, & the most cost- & result-effective way to handle paper is electronically

·         E-mails are the hottest e-File format:  Estimates indicate 30 billion e-mails are created daily in 2005 reaching 60 billion daily in 2006; 1 in 20 companies has already faced a workplace lawsuit triggered by e-mails — see the cases discussed in our Digital Law Primer for the results

e-Discovery Consulting & Training:

To help you with your understanding, we offer CLE seminars through recognized educational institutions, and individual or firm-wide e-Discovery consulting and training services.  Contact us to bring you or your entire firm up to speed ahead of the rest of the legal community.

Major e-Discovery Projects:

 Why do over half of the top US law firms use Kroll Ontrack?  Because of the breadth, depth and cost-effectiveness of its services. 

Document discovery represents 50 percent of the litigation costs in the average case and up to 90 percent of the costs in an active discovery case.

Let's look at the three overlapping areas in which we can work with Kroll OnTrack to reduce your discovery time and costs, and improve your client's results and satisfaction.

e-Discovery:  Efficiently manage large volumes of electronic information and quickly find evidence that could mean the difference between winning and losing your case -- the veritable needle in a haystack.  e-Data from your clients and/or your opponents can be quickly control coded, filtered, organized and presented to you for review by any size litigation team on Kroll's ElectronicDataViewer® under an unassailable chain of custody.

Spend your professional time where it will count, not on paper-shuffling mechanics.  Select responsive production items, and hearing or trial exhibits, with ease.  Obviously there are feasibility thresholds, but once they are met, the costs quickly beat manual or unstructured electronic reviews.

Paper Discovery:  Of all of the discovery material, about seven out of every 10 documents exist in electronic form only. Don’t let the remaining 30 percent – which might consist of hard copies of deleted emails, memos, and spreadsheets – be an afterthought when you develop your next document discovery plan.

Kroll Ontrack's continuum of integrated discovery solutions can efficiently address all your document review and management needs for the paper portion of your discovery.  Paper data can be control coded, converted to images, OCR'd and distributed under custodial conditions for review by your litigation team using the ElectronicDataViewer® in less time and with less cost than a traditional manual review.  This will simplify selection of responsive production items and exhibits, with even greater cost savings compared to manual methods.

Let us show you how to efficiently and effectively work your way through the e-Discovery process:

• Define the scope of e-Discovery
• Preserve & collect the e-Data
• e-Filter & Process the e-Data for review
• Select e-Review options & conduct the review
• Select e-Production options & produce

Computer Forensics:  Kroll Ontrack can find hidden or hard-to-find data, recreate past computer-related conduct, or access data that you think is forever lost - and explain to the court why it happened.  This can turn the case where your data would otherwise be lost and result in adverse presumptions, or your opponent wishes his data were lost.

What About Smaller e-Discovery Projects:

Other e-Discovery tools are available to make smaller projects easier and more cost efficient.  We can help you find and utilize the ones that fit your situation.

One such tool with broad general applicability is i-PI® by Findit, a revolutionary program that will enable you to search images for text without OCR.  See our i-PI page for details.

Ensure Regulatory Compliance:

Regulatory compliance is increasingly pervasive, and often unknown until a fine or penalty is assessed.  For example, many people think that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's document retention requirements applies only to publicly traded companies.  But look at the broad jurisdictional scope of that Act:

..whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document or tangible object with the intent to impede, influence or obstruct the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under Title 11, or in relation to or in contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this Title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.  (Emphasis supplied.)

A paper Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system is inherently risky and costly in terms of subjecting its owner to unnecessary fines and penalties.  Did every piece of paper get saved in a manner that ensures it can be retrieved upon regulatory demand to show compliance?

An ECM system with Imaging Software such as DocSTAR® offers security, privacy-control, retrieval, and other features that will help ensure regulatory compliance under HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, the Patriot Act and other regulatory schemes.  In fact, DocSTAR's patented Authentidate® process used by the US Postal Service, the German Government and other major users who must ensure integrity of their systems is as close to bullet proof as you can get.

Tell us what you need to control and produce for your regulators in order to comply, and we can provide a regulatory compliance protocol and tailor your paperless system to ease this burden and establish proof of compliance.

These same principles can be applied to design a ECM system that will minimize the cost of discovery in future litigation for businesses that are the targets of frequent lawsuits.

Benefit, Don't Run, From e-Filings:

Courts and other government agencies are allowing, and more and more mandating, electronic filings.  The US Bankruptcy Court for Clark County, Nevada has already made e-Filing and e-Service mandatory.  Other local courts are not far behind, and have already made e-Filing optional.

Don't fight the e-Filing trend -- use it to make your litigation work easier.  Besides filing and serving pleadings and papers electronically, you can search the records for, obtain and convert into editable text the electronic briefs in other cases to efficiently gather relevant legal research and other data.

Once you see how easy and cost effective e-Filing, searching and repurposing the available e-data can be, you will wonder why you waited so long.  This is merely one benefit of a digital image system -- you will already be using the tools that the courts encourage and require.