eDiscovery & NetGovern

SEARCH, PRODUCE,

and EXPORT EXACTLY

WHAT YOU’RE

LOOKING FOR.

WHITE PAPER

NetGovern eDiscovery 2

eDiscovery and NetGovernIn the eDiscovery world, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) has been the standard conceptual framework followed by most eDiscovery cases. The EDRM appears to move linearly. Data is identified, preserved and collected, then processed, reviewed, and analyzed before moving to production and presentation.

Although this process does gradually narrow your data set, a sizable bulk of electronic documents is the result of the Preservation and Collection stages. The depth and breadth of the collected information, in the form of documents, emails, and shared cloud files from different locations, be it in-house or on-premise, can be broad, and sometimes overreaching. Whether this information is relevant to the case or not does not matter. It must all be analyzed, searching for the 10% of relevant information—a costly and time-consuming endeavor involving lawyers, paralegals, case managers, and auditors.

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This is where NetGovern steps in and shakes things up in eDiscovery...because why collect what you don’t need? The problem is two-fold: first, since you are the owner of the collected information, you have the best knowledge of where relevant information resides and what constitutes relevant information; second, the eDiscovery review team receiving the information (often subcontractors to the outside counsel) charge fees proportional to the amount of data that needs to be reviewed. You can take control of the eDiscovery costs and timelines by being smarter during the collection process. Since you own the data, you can reduce the amount of data sent for review. This not only reduces costs, but it shortens the timeline to send reviewed data to corporate counsel. The same thing applies to outside legal counsel. They have every reason to reduce the cost of eDiscovery and make their efforts with the customer more effective. Furthermore, they can get directly involved in helping customers reduce the cost by participating in this enhanced collection process.

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Smart CollectionWe could call it smart collection and identification. The idea is to have NetGovern Search connect to all the data sources relevant to your organization, keep a permanent collection, and an up-to-date index of the information. The index contains clear reports of jobs run and you get confirmation that all data is indexed.

When an eDiscovery request is made, inside or outside counsel can quickly identify a complete but minimum set of data by processing directly in the source location. Then in one swoop, the information is collected, put on legal hold, and exported thereby

$ $

INFORMATIONGOVERNANCE

IDENTIFICATION

PRODUCTION

PRESENTATION

PRESERVATION COLLECTION

PROCESSING

REVIEW

ANALYSIS

Smart Collection

Preservation and collection performed after processing-reviews-analysis; required resources lowered

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completing the review, produce, and present process. This allows you to complete the eDiscovery process using your standard process and tools or providing the information to your counsel.

What is great is that this process applies not only to on premise data, for which many organizations have collection tools, but also applies to all of the increasingly-popular cloud services, such as Box, OneDrive, O365 email, and more. Within NetGovern Search, you can collate documents to a minimum data set that will significantly reduce the cost of eDiscovery. The overall process is much shorter, reducing timelines and allowing organizations to prepare better for litigation.

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eDiscovery the NetGovern WayInstead of adhering to the EDRM model for eDiscovery, the NetGovern framework moves on a slightly different path, essentially swapping a few of the stages.

Once a legal hold is issued, instead of performing a bulk collection of electronic documents at the beginning of eDiscovery, it is done post-collection after thorough searching and filtering. Then it moves through the usual Review and Analysis stages, which in turn may require more in-depth searching. This is an iterative process of data whittling to uncover the few documents needed for a case. This makes for a much more manageable number of documents as compared to the thousands captured with the standard process. Once the legal team is satisfied that they have identified all the appropriate data, only then do you proceed with preserving and collecting data.

The differentiator with the NetGovern framework is that you and your team have already performed the processing, review and analysis on a much smaller data set that contains information directly relevant to your case. The result is a faster, more concise search allowing you to resolve cases in a fraction of the time.

At first, it may seem a bit strange to perform searches before collecting data, but that’s the advantage of NetGovern Search. You can access data from many different locations with one tool and because NetGovern Search continually indexes the information, you are always working with the latest, most up-to-date information. This ensures that the results of your collection work is dependable, timely and most importantly, thorough. The built-in indexing supports the integrity of your results.

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Here’s how you can make the switch from the standard EDRM methodology to NetGovern. The following table maps each stage of eDiscovery with that of NetGovern’s and the sequence you should follow.

NetGovern eDiscovery

Identification

IT supplies legal team with access to data locations through NetGovern Search. Case manager creates cases, defines scope, and assigns reviewers.

ProcessingDeep search using keywords, filters, and advanced search tools.

Review

Small, targeted data set reviewed and analyzed.

Analysis

Preservation

Collection

Production

Export native files and PST.

= Legal Team = IT

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Identification and Case ManagementIn the Identification phase of eDiscovery, the legal team develops and executes a plan to identify and validate potentially relevant ESI sources, including key players, data custodians, and data relevant to a matter. Once this is completed, IT supplies the legal team with access to data locations through NetGovern Search.

• Scope: Information associated with the case including the name,description, status, case type, open and close dates, case numbers and more.

• Data Locations: Set the locations in which information pertaining to your caseresides (WFS, Box, email, Sharepoint).

• Users: Set names of the key players and custodians (called users in NetGovernSearch) you will be investigating.

• Reviewers: Create a list of individuals who have permission in NetGovern Search toperform searches, and the date on which their access privileges end.

• Tags: The case manager determines if the predefined tags are appropriatefor use in the case. A tag is used for identifying items, flagging them for furtherinvestigation or relevance. If needed, create custom tags for your case andcarefully define their use so reviewers can apply them in a consistent manner.

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Data Locations

A location is defined as the archive store(s) in which the data you want to search resides. NetGovern Search can access data in these locations:

• Windows File Sharing (WFS)

• Email Archives

• Egnyte

• Box

• Microsoft SharePoint (online and on-premise)

• Microsoft OneDrive

• Citrix FileShare

Once you have determined the data locations relevant for your case and organization, NetGovern Search connects to them and maintains an up-to-date index of the information contained in them.

Users

Users are the subjects of your search. The case manager selects the users to investigate in each location in NetGovern Search. For example, if your suit is a wrongful dismissal that involves an employee named Bill Rapp, then his name would be included in the list of users. Other users would also have been identified, including his manager, members of the HR department, and perhaps the CEO and some co-workers.

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SearchingOnce cases are created in NetGovern Search, you can start the initial search, where you will work with data sets in different data locations. Reviewers assigned to a case will make assessments on an item level, selecting only appropriate items to move forward for review by the case attorney.

The basic and advanced search tools make it very efficient to reduce the amount of data significantly and target specific factors, such as dates, location, hours, and especially search terms (keywords) which can greatly enhance the value and accuracy of your data. This is the key strength of NetGovern Search.

Once you have whittled the data to a smaller set of documents, it is time to further hone it by performing multiple and cascading searches which allow you to compare and seek out subtleties in the data. You can go deeper with the advanced searching tools which let you search within searches and pinpoint the exact information you are looking for. Because you are always looking simultaneously through multiple data locations with up-do-date indexed information, you are assured that information is always current. This is called federated search.

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Preserving and CollectingThe Preservation and Collection stage of eDiscovery with NetGovern Search is performed at the end of eDiscovery after the Search and Review/Analyze stages. By this time, you have performed a thorough search and the results have been reviewed and analyzed. At this point, the size of data to be preserved and collected is small and targeted, making preservation and collection fast and cost effective.

To uphold an ongoing legal hold during a case, documents must be captured and preserved in its native state for defensibility reasons. During collection, you can normalize and export documents in PDF, PST, or Portable NetGovern Search formats. Normalization is the process of transforming documents to make them consistent in terms of the information it contains, such as:

• Whether email attachments are included

• Search criteria used

• Email metadata

• Audit information such as when it was archived, viewed, and printed

• Page header with the case name

• Footer with page numbers

You can export the content in order to produce it for the lawyers, externally for access information requests or for use by the people in your organization, as well as for completing the eDiscovery process with other tools if needed.

About NetGovernFiles are now routinely shared across dozens of applications, then stored in multiple locations or on many devices around the world, making it quite difficult to ensure the security and compliance of your enterprise content. NetGovern delivers an Information Governance solution that is both Prescriptive and Proactive. It reduces risk, while providing you with the ability to extract insight and value from unstructured data.

NetGovern enables regulated organizations to instantly search for information regardless of where it is stored or how it was shared. We connect to multiple cloud and on-site systems covering email, IM, file stores & collaboration platforms. Consolidated search results are enhanced via our smart audit, advanced eDiscovery and automated remediation capabilities. Hundreds of clients worldwide trust our Certified Partners to help them preserve, protect and enrich the value of their most valuable asset.

NetGovern Inc. 180 Peel Street, Suite 333 Montreal, QC H3C 2G7 514.392.9220 | info@netgovern.com

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