Electronic Discovery

Processing

Processing normalizes data and reduces the volume of ESI to be reviewed for privilege, responsiveness, and further analysis in connection with factual and legal issues in a given case. Although some processing occurs before the analysis phase, inevitably additional processing will occur after the analysis phase when determinations have been made as to which populations may be responsive or likely to yield responsive data. At this initial processing stage, it is important to consider (or focus more closely on), among other things:

• The type of review tool that will be used. This may influence how data is processed and the format data takes
• The form of production. Although this may have been agreed upon by counsel prior to this stage, the types or volume of data may influence whether parties take on the cost of converting documents to a consistent image format (e.g., TIF/PDF) with load files for metadata; produce documents in native format; or engage in a quasi-native production consisting of some images and some native documents
• Quality control. This is necessary throughout all stages of the EDRM, and automated and manual/personal quality control checks play an important role in ensuring document review and production is accurate and judicious