Data collection is at the forefront of many cases.
We help attorneys, paralegals, and legal support staff to investigate, gather, preserve, recover, analyze, and convert electronic data into comprehensible evidence while maximizing its value and use in court.
What is Electronic data?
Electronic data (also known as electronically stored information or ESI) is a legal term broadly defined as any data or documents that are created or stored on electronic media. It can include:
- Emails
- Microsoft documents like Word documents or Excel spreadsheets
- Text messages
- File share drives
- Business tools
- Social media posts and messages
- Intranets, Microsoft Teams, and other business tools
- Videos
- Sound recordings
- Digital scans of physical documents
- Mobile metadata or messages originating from a cell phone
- The IoT (Internet of Things)
We help you identify and locate potential sources of this electronically stored information, such as:
- A custodian’s desktop computer
- A custodian’s cell phone or tablet
- A company server or computer system
- A hard drive
- Cloud applications
What About Metadata?
The processes and technologies around e-discovery are often complex because of the sheer volume of electronic data produced and stored. Because the data is stored electronically, it often includes metadata like:
- Time/date stamps
- Author and recipient information
- File Properties
Our Collection Process
We help you collect and store data that may need to be produced during litigation. Preserving the original content and metadata for electronically stored information is required in order to eliminate claims of spoliation or tampering with evidence later in litigation.
A typical ESI process:
- Identify sources of ESI
- Collect ESI
- Index it, cull it, and place it into a database
- Review the data
- Produce the data needed
Our forensics team can collect ESI from custodians on-site or remotely, ensuring active custodians aren’t without their devices for very long, when possible. We can also testify in court about how we collected the data in a legally defensible way. As always, we welcome your questions and comments, and are always available for a free consultation. Contact us at (314) 436-7878 to schedule a call.
