In law, what is discovery? It is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from the opposite party. E-discovery or electronic discovery is about discovering electronic form of information during any civil litigation.
Electronic information is different from the paper based information and has revolutionized the legal profession. E-discovery has been the subject of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which is now effective since December 1, 2006. Basically e-discovery takes three forms: written discovery, document production and depositions. Depositions are sworn statements given when questioned in court. It is document production that involves searching of huge volumes of data and so this process costs more time and money. The "document production" part of E-discovery is usually outsourced to reduce the high cost of litigation.
Evidences /data may be found in any of the following electronic form.
- E-mail,
- Instant messaging chats,
- MS Office files
- Accounting databases,
- CAD/CAM files,
- Web sites,
- Floppies /CDs / tapes
Attorneys and the parties involved in any legal case have to decide even at the outset the file format in which evidences can be presented after considering the preservation of the chain of evidence. There are many available e-discovery tools that are used to annotate documents, classify etc. Preserving the chain of evidences is about retaining the purity andf originality of the evidence and critical to winning the case.Legal coding is a process used by lawyers and paralegals to organize and manage the documents, for specific fields, and load this information into a database for easy reference. There are many e-discovery tools available in the market. Some of the most popular e-discovery software brands available online include Oracle-Stellent, LexisNexis, Findlaw, and CT Summation.