Advanced Ediscovery Approaches for Modern Data Types
What you need to know about Slack, Zoom, Mobile, Teams, and other novel data
In today’s hybrid work environment, every videoconference, text message, and chat leaves a digital trail. The communications exchanged through Teams, Zoom, Slack, and mobile phones are fast, informal, and unstructured.
That makes for a host of discovery headaches for the legal professionals in charge of protecting their organizations – or their clients – during disputes and investigations. With novel data types increasingly making their way into court cases, corporate data is changing the very nature of the litigation process.
To map out the phenomenal evolution of collaboration and communication tools and their impact on the ediscovery and litigation landscape, Everlaw has launched Novel Data Types: How Collaborative Tools Are Changing the Face of Ediscovery.
The guide describes the top challenges legal professionals face and best practices to navigate ediscovery successfully.
What You’ll Find in the Guide
Organized into five chapters, the guide charts the explosive growth of workplace collaboration platforms and communications tools and the challenges that come with preserving, collecting, analyzing, and producing electronically stored information.
Each section also rounds up examples of must-know case law showing the position courts have taken so far on key issues.
To learn how each major data type works, its impact on litigation and investigations, and methods to ensure defensible discovery, check out the individual chapters:
Just How Explosive Have Novel Data Been?
Growth in the popularity of digital collaboration and communications tools is often described as “explosive.” A few statistics underscore the phenomenon:
Between 2020 and 2021, when workers went remote en masse, Zoom took off and became one of the fastest-growing apps. Its active users shot up 2,900% – from 10 million to 200 million. Growth has since slowed, but Zoom still averages about 300 million active users per day.
The rise in users of the Microsoft Teams app is also eye popping. Between 2017 and 2023, active users soared by 15,900% to 320 million.
With 2.9 billion monthly users, WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging platform in the world. From 2011 to 2023, the number of WhatsApp messages users sent per day rocketed by 13,900%, from 1 billion to 140 billion.
None of these modern tools were designed with ediscovery in mind. The sheer volume and complexity involved in preserving, collecting, and analyzing this type of data introduces new levels of difficulty in ediscovery and requires new approaches.
Learn more about how modern legal teams are taking control of novel data types such as multichannel conversations, ephemeral chat solutions, audio/video conferencing services in the introductory chapter.
Mobile Data Is Increasingly Used in Lawsuits
It’s a misconception that mobile device data is only relevant in a small percentage of cases, or that it’s not discoverable. In reality, mobile devices are often a rich source of relevant electronically stored information, or ESI, in both civil and criminal cases.
Text messages frequently come up in civil litigation while GPS data can place a suspect at a crime scene or provide an alibi in criminal cases. Photos, videos, and phone logs are relevant to both types. And biometric data, such as health and fitness information stored in wearable devices, has also cropped up in both criminal and civil cases in recent years.
Legal professionals must understand when personal mobile devices are discoverable, the methods available for collecting that data, and strategies to avoid inadvertently producing privileged information.
Read more for ediscovery best practices and tips about handling mobile data in litigation and investigations in the first chapter.
Overcoming Obstacles to Social Media Discovery
Global social media use continues to grow. Some project the number of users to hit 8 billion by 2027. The data created on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and other platforms are a source of evidence in disputes and investigations and the challenges they pose are multifaceted.
There are public profiles, private profiles, abandoned profiles, and forgotten platforms – all of which potentially need to be identified and considered during ediscovery. There’s the need to demonstrate chain of custody and verify the authenticity of social data. Different social media platforms have unique characteristics that require platform-specific strategies for evidence collection. And as with other modern data types, there are enormous volumes to contend with.
Legal professionals need to understand when social media evidence is relevant in litigation and investigations, how to collect data from each, and how legal precedent can guide discovery.
Learn how litigation teams can handle social media data in ediscovery today in the second chapter.
Ephemeral Messaging Data Is Fair Game in Discovery
Regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission have emphasized the duty to monitor and preserve data from off-network messaging apps.
Called “ephemeral” for their transient nature, these types of communications automatically vanish, creating special challenges for legal professionals. How do you preserve something that’s designed to self-destruct and leave no footprint? And how do you track these communications when IT and legal teams may not be aware that employees are using them?
Regulators and courts understand the business value of ephemeral messaging but they’ve also shown that organizations bear the responsibility of managing associated risks. Implementing proper policies and safeguards is crucial for compliance.
Read about the key considerations and best practices for handling ephemeral messaging data in ediscovery in chapter three.
Tips for Handling A/V Data in Discovery and Investigations
Audio and video data is spooled out every minute of every day by surveillance systems, smartphones, and videoconferencing solutions, generating a need for advanced discovery tools and techniques to ensure a defensible process.
It's among the most challenging and expensive for ediscovery. Legal professionals must understand how to handle its many unique features: the size of A/V files and variety of formats, maintenance of the chain of custody, privacy concerns, and other considerations.
Read more about reducing risk in collecting, reviewing, redacting, and producing data from Zoom and other common meeting platforms in the fourth chapter.
