Category: Legal Hold

For IT professionals who see no reason to treat evidence any differently than any other data, I practice a simple chain of custody exercise. I have them simply “move” files from on physical disk to another. Many people interpret data movement like they would move a chair; however, when you move Electronically Stored Information (ESI) from one physical device to another, it moves a representation of the original item. Critical things like data ownership, group security, created date and many other pieces of metadata (data about data) are changed when the data is “moved.” This minor issue can become a major legal risk when authenticating chain of custody in court.

When these two groups meet, the language and focus is decidedly different. Fios consultants use skills of communication and collaboration to bridge this gap. This has been the focus of Fios since our inception nearly a decade ago. We pioneered the concept of litigation readiness in 2003, well before the amendments to the Federal Rules were in place, and have built an entire portfolio of discovery planning services to help both IT and legal prepare for discovery challenges. For example, in the data mapping process, we help them focus on eDiscovery as a business process that incorporates:

Prior to 2007 the drivers for archiving were two fold 1) operational efficiencies and 2) SEC 17a4. The latter required financial services companies to maintain a record of every email sent and received from the company. These two issues drove the systems to retain and manage data, largely email initial. The early success of products from KVS, Inc, now Symantec, are clear examples of people buying for specific applications.