ESI Management Services

Understanding ESI and the Importance of Third-Party ESI Management Services

Summary: eDiscovery is a sophisticated and time-consuming process. But, proper ESI management is critical in most legal cases of today. Here’s why.

ESI or “Electronically Stored Information” is a term used in the legal world to broadly define data created/stored on electronic media. ESI is and has been used as evidence in litigations for many years. In 2006, revisions were made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to make ESI a new, legally defined term.

Do you want to use any type of ESI in your litigation process?

To meet federal disclosure obligations, you will first have to disclose all potentially relevant data sources behind your ESI. This process is commonly called “electronic discovery.” That’s because ESI can originate from different sources. Attorneys must question the data owners appropriately to ensure all federal rules of civil procedures are properly met.

According to the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP 2006) –

· ESI can be used to accommodate litigation pertaining to electronically created or stored records.

· Parties involved in litigation can share ESI with each other after obtaining legal permissions from the court. One party may share electronically stored documents, photographs, sound recordings, and other data compilations with the other.

· Owners of ESI must follow the FRCP electronic discovery rules and prove the identity and validity of their ESI. For example, one party may request the other to share the source of their ESI. The requested party must develop and produce apt responses to such requests.

Why Does ESI Need to Be Professionally Managed?

ESI management legal services are extremely important because privileged information needs to be protected. ESI managers often identify and protect sensitive data by storing it in safe locations and indexing it for easy retrieval.

The term “ESI” can be used to define various types of digital records, including -

· Electronic Communications: Emails, instant messages, text messages, and any attachments included in these messages.

· Documents: PDFs, word processing documents, electronic documents, text files, spreadsheets, etc., that are relevant to the litigation process.

· Company ESI: Database information of private or public organizations. Data from company hard drives, servers, cloud applications, computer systems, and Internet of things (IoT) devices.

Other forms of ESI include -

· Social media posts, messages, profile information, and other similar data.

· Data from mobile or computer applications.

· Images, photos, videos, sound recordings, and voicemails created/stored on electronic devices.

· Data from “smart devices” or Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as smartphones, smart appliances, transportation navigation systems, etc.

· Data from a curator’s computer.

· Mobile metadata

· Digital scans of physical documents

The process of inspecting, testing, analyzing, or sampling these pieces of ESI is very difficult. This process is called “eDiscovery.” It is essential to most legal cases. The quality of your eDiscovery process will determine whether your ESI creates compelling arguments on your behalf in litigations.

That’s why ESI collection processes deserve maximum commitment. Law firms that want to sustain high data accuracy standards in their organizations partner with third-party ESI managers.

ESI Management Done Correctly

Many law firms outsource their ESI-related responsibilities to third-party professionals. These professional providers of ESI Management legal services use the latest eDiscovery software tools to manage these complex processes.

Their services help law firms develop concrete audit trails for their clients. Their clients can then appropriately address all data requests made by their opposing parties.