eDiscovery Services

For the past hundred years discovery has been done using only paper documents, it is not uncommon for companies of all sizes to have warehouses of historical documents stored for safe keeping.

Since the use of digital communications is virtually unavoidable in the modern world most of the data is now stored electronically. The courts have recognized this shift in information storage and have expanded the discovery process to include electronically stored data or ESI.

Finding, collecting and producing electronic data during litigation is called electronic discovery or e-discovery. ESI can come in a vast variety of different formats, most common ones are word files, spreadsheets, email messages, databases, sound recordings and video files.

At least 90% of the current corporate communication is done by email, with many email messages having one or multiple attachments. These emails and attachments are stored in a variety of different places such as workstations, laptops, servers, backup tapes, cloud providers and mobile devices.

If you are ever involved in a lawsuit or a dispute having access to your electronically stored data will be essential in order to prove your argument.Secure Data Recovery Services are experts at helping you to extract all relevant ESI from complex IT infrastructure. Our e-discovery process consists of seven main components.

Identification

Our team of experts will locate all sources of electronically stored information and will find the best approach to collect it.

Secure Data Recovery are experts in obtaining ESI from all File Systems and Data Storage Devices.

• Hard Drives, Desktop Computers, Workstations, Laptops
• Removable Media, USB Thumb drives, Tape Drives
• Email Servers, Database Servers, RAID Arrays, Application Servers, File Servers
• Smartphones, Tablets, SIM Cards
• Surveillance Cameras, Digital Recorders, Camcorders, GPS Systems
• Files, Logs, Metadata, Databases, Cloud Providers, Industrial Systems, Email Accounts

Preservation

Secure Data Recovery team will make sure the collected ESI is protected from being changed or deleted while the litigation is ongoing. This process can be very challenging since employees rely on the data to conduct day to day operations.

Collection

Gathering ESI for further use in the e-discovery process. During the collection process our e-discovery experts will collect all relevant ESI as defined during the identification portion of the process. It is essential that this step is completed using forensically sound methods since internal investigations, legal inquiries and litigation require defensible and auditable results. The Secure Data Recovery e-discovery approach collects all associated metadata which will be indisputable during the production portion of the process.

Processing

Our custom process and software will reduce the amount of ESI to just the relevant information including removing duplicate files stored on multiple devices and email chains containing the same attachments. This information is then converted to datasets which can be searched or queried for relevant phrases or terms.

Some files may also be converted to different formats which may be more suitable for the presentation portion of the e-discovery process.

• Restoration of archive backups and other sets of data
• Conversion of legacy formats of databases, files, and e-mail
• Extraction of container files (e-mail, encrypted files, virtual disks, databases and compressed file sets)
• Cataloging and itemization of all extracted files, e-mail, attachments and sparse files
• De-duplication, near de-duplication and similarity hashing
• Model Extraction
• Full text indexing
• Exception identification and handling

Review

During this state our team of e-discovery experts will work with your legal team to go through the ESI which has been collected and processed to ensure that all information is relevant and nothing that has been collected is considered classified or private.

Analysis

As the data is being processed and reviewed our e-discovery team learns more about the collected data and refines our process to locate the most relevant ESI to the case.

Production

Once the information is processed, reviewed and analyzed its ready for production during which stage the most relevant ESI is delivered to the recipient such as the Client, court or opposing council. Should the case go to trial or the information used during other proceedings attorneys may be responsible for presenting the evidence in a clear and concise format to support the argument. At this time having the right company perform your e-discovery process will be the different in winning and losing.