Forming an E-Discovery Strategy
If you feel possible litigation or investigation may be on its way, you need to get prepared. Steps you take now can make a huge difference later down the road if you are facing a lawsuit. The first thing you need to do is form a strategy.

But how much do you know about ediscovery and do you know how to properly form a strategy? Early preparation is very important in the success of your ediscovery efforts. You need to form a strategy that works and with a plan that you know you and your company can stick to, even if it means hiring professionals to help with certain steps and processes.

One of the first aspects of your strategy will be the time required to carry out the ediscovery process from start to finish. You need to know the different steps of the ediscovery process to help determine how much time it will take to complete it all.

You need to be able to:

• Anticipate the litigation or proceedings
• Understand data and how it is stored
• Understand the data recovery process
• Find out how your document management system is stored
• Discuss document retention practices
• Be ready to produce documents when needed
• Identify people within the company with the most computer knowledge (for interrogations)
• Address any spoliation issues right away
• Determine the quantity of data involved
• Develop an offensive strategy

These are some of the parts you may have in your strategy. It varies from individual to individual and case to case but these are some basics to forming a good strategy to help you succeed in your ediscovery efforts.

Again, always remember how important ediscovery can be and don’t hold back from getting an expert if you need one. A lot can be riding on this evidence and you don’t want to make any mistakes.