{"id":2299,"date":"2024-04-28T19:59:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T19:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/?p=2299"},"modified":"2024-04-28T20:32:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T20:32:52","slug":"ediscovery-in-sa-the-power-and-value-of-early-case-assessment-eca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/28\/ediscovery-in-sa-the-power-and-value-of-early-case-assessment-eca\/","title":{"rendered":"eDiscovery in SA \u2013 The power and value of Early Case Assessment (ECA)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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For years now, those of us involved in eDiscovery have mused over Early Case Assessment or Early Data Assessment and for many of those years I was in the camp of the latter. I say that because I always felt that a lawyer should work on various aspects of assessing his case strategy and not just data. However, with increasing volumes of data and ever improving technology I have switched camps! Let me highlight some of the reasons.\r\n\r\nFirstly, I often preach \u201cKnow your data, know your case\u201d and I stand by that mantra unreservedly. Here in SA, Rule 41 of the Uniform Rules makes it mandatory to consider mediation from the outset. I contend that you cannot possibly do that without knowing a great deal about your case as early as possible. If there is any prospect of settling, then you should do so from a position of strength rather than weakness and you can only do that by having some early knowledge about what the data in your case contains.\r\n\r\nSecondly, clients want to know as soon as ever possible how much the case is going to cost. ECA will materially assist in this regard, as will be seen later.\r\n\r\nThirdly, a lawyer needs to strategise as to how to run the case including, how many team members are required and at what level; whether or not any experts are required; how realistic is meeting the timeframe for discovery given the volume of data; will it be necessary to recruit foreign language speaking lawyers for any of the data or should translation be considered; and so much more. Answers to all of the above can be derived from the proper and effective use of ECA at the right time. In other words, it is about gauging time, cost and resources at the earliest possible opportunity.\r\n\r\nHere are some examples of ECA features contained in the best eDiscovery solutions: -\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Data volumes \u2013 of course you need to know how much data and therefore documents you have in the collection so you can deal with timelines, cost and resources \r\n\r\n\u00b7 File types \u2013 is it an \u201cemail heavy\u201d case? Is it largely financial? Is it mostly about complex specialist reports? These will help with strategy very quickly. \r\n\r\n\u00b7 Domains \u2013 a great way of reducing data volume instantly, by excluding unnecessary domains e.g Netflix, eBay etc.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Languages \u2013 I saw the value of seeing how much data was in different languages when working in the UK when a data collection contained many documents in various European languages. Maybe not quite so important here in SA but useful, nonetheless. \r\n\r\n\u00b7 Identification of key custodians \u2013 seeing at a glance how many and who are the people who have knowledge and information about the matter in question.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Location of data sources \u2013 using location technologies to identify and track the whereabouts of connected electronic devices\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Key concepts and keywords \u2013 these will help to concentrate the review on issues and specific documents.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Clustering \u2013 part of the above and will identify topics and gather them together.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Near duplication \u2013 allows very similar documents to be reduced before loading into the review workflow\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Email threading \u2013 ascertains conversation patterns and streamlines review by showing the thread of emails, allowing for bulk document decision making.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Data reduction \u2013 overall being able to reduce the amount of data being loaded into the review workflow.\r\n\r\nFor experienced eDiscovery technologists the above, and more, are standard best practices from the outset and should be followed, provided that the software being used has the capabilities. Anyone can see the value if this is done properly and efficiently. The frightening 1m documents can become a more manageable 200,000 very quickly before any manual review is done. Imagine therefore not only the time saving, but the cost saving for the client. \r\n\r\nIn summary what is needed is the best eDiscovery solution, one that has all of these capabilities, coupled with an experienced and skilled eDiscovery technology specialist, working with an open minded and receptive lawyer. Anything less is not doing justice for the client who is after all, paying the bill. <\/p>\r\n <\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2305,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions\/2305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}