You look up from your desk to see one of your firm’s attorneys in your doorway.  “We need to talk,” he says.  “We’re being sued by a former employee alleging discriminatory employment practices.  We need to issue litigation holds and prepare for electronic discovery of all relevant materials.”  If this scenario hasn’t already occurred in your organization, it’s likely to happen in the near future.

Discovery is a legal practice dating back many years and very familiar to attorneys.  Both sides in a legal battle must provide all information relevant to the case to the opposing side.  These practices are quickly evolving to recognize the fact that most modern information is stored electronically and it is incumbent upon litigants to produce this information as well, using a process known as electronic discovery, or eDiscovery.  As you might imagine, this can require sorting those tremendous volumes of data, easily ranging into the hundreds of gigabytes for even a “small” case.