2. How We Do It The Identification Gap Big Hole? “Identifying the relevant custodians upfront has far-reaching effects on a legal case. I am frankly surprised no-one has built technology to aid this critical process.” Ken Leissler, Protiviti
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4. Did we miss anyone? … from within the group? … from another department or group? … contractors (not on org chart)? … from outside the company? So how do you defensibly get identification right without over-collecting?
7. Did you miss anyone?Identify ALL the custodians, first time Establish who is key (prioritization) Uncover unexpected custodians Visualize how people are connected
8. The Problem Use Case 26f conference preparation – product liability Our client is a Fortune 500 company and were preparing their defense for an alleged product liability case. The collection initially centered on a specific group responsible for the product in question. The plaintiff requested the collection of 100 custodians. Catelas was able to quickly demonstrate that only 15 custodians were relevant to this case. More importantly, Catelas identified 5 new custodians (not previously considered), who were central to the case. One was a contractor (not on org chart). In fact, the Catelas analysis not only helped reduce and refine the scope of discovery, but provided leading intelligence from the contractor’s emails that greatly impacted thecourse of actiontaken by our client.
10. Thank You Robert Levey 978 996 2758 robert.levey@catelas.com www.catelas.com
Editor's Notes
Catelas is focusing on the far left hand side of the EDRM – Identification. We believe if you get identification right, first time, this has major implications for eDiscovery throughout the rest of the EDRM. Not least on Preservation and Collection.So what are the consequences of NOT getting it right?Legal Hold: clearly if you do not preserve all of the relevant custodians you run the risk of spoliation.26f: but equally, if you over-collect, not only does this drive up the scope and cost of litigation (throughout the EDRM), but strategically you are giving opposing counsel a wider net from which to search for evidence. Now obviously, no-one is deliberately trying to hide data from opposing counsel, but you are trying to limit the scope in line with proportionality. Having a defensible case for who and what should or should not be included, is key.Closer:One of our client’s, Ken Leissler, put it very eloquently – getting identification right has FAR REACHING effects on the entire legal process. While technology is being used to aid eDiscovery in virtually every other part of the EDRM, not so much for identification…. this area is more about “feel and touch”
Current process:When we have asked our clients how do they identify custodians – for Preservation or further into Litigation – we always get the same answer - Org charts and Interviews. The identification typically starts with ‘who’ was close to the matter in question, which triggers a series of interviews to find out more.The Problem:This process is far from complete and exhaustive. In fact it is subject to significant gaps - how current is the org chart, is everyone on the org chart, do the people being interviewed remember all the players (if the matter goes back a few years). It is very easy to miss key people. Furthermore, this process does not reflect the way business is done in reality – the modern enterprise encourages cross-functional collaboration and social networking tools (twitter, facebook, etc) encourages {sometimes} social interaction at work. So business really does not happen in silo’s anymore.Closer:So is there a way to defensibly get identification right? To demonstrate a methodical process for identifying who to preserve or to reason for a narrower scope of collection?
We believe there is…Catelas has introduced the Dynamic Business Org Chart (we do not call it a Social Org Chart) since people then think we are analyzing public social networks (like Facebook and LinkedIn). We are not – we mostly map email communications inside and outside of a company.This provides an up-to-date view of everyone in a company (including partners, customers and friends) and how they interact – ‘who knows who’, ‘how well’ and ‘what are they talking about’Why is this important – well we provide VISUAL EARLY CASE INTELLIGENCE based on a thorough understanding of who has relationships with Key Custodians, instantly alerting you to the non-obvious. For example, a key custodian may be the VP R&D. Our maps visualize all the relationships he shares inside and outside the company, including the fact that he has a very strong relationship with a Technical Contractor (who was not on the org chart) or a Marketing Intern (which seems odd) or with key people at the company suing our company for a Patent Infringement. We are taking a snapshot of the entire organization, not just a sample of the Key Custodian and the people immediately around him or her. And its based on real communications – literally every email communication, inside and outside the company. Comprehensive and defensible.In fact we believe it is THE ONLY defensible way to get identification right. We ELIMINATE SURPRISES.
Let’s take you through how the process works in practise:Client engages with us either at Legal Hold or 26f stageClient provides us with their email Log Files (last 30 days) and/or 2-5 Key Custodian pst’s (or nsf’s)We answer 2 primary questions – who is involved AND did you miss anyone.We do this through a rigid methodology which we have actually borrowed from Law Enforcement and the way investigations are conducted in real life crime scenes.Identify ALL custodians – from 100% of the organization, not an assumed sample (eg one department)Prioritized list - who is most important versus least or (not) important based on relationshipsUnexpected or missing custodians – these are often referred to as “tangential custodians” and typically serve as an inter-mediary between two key custodians. In other works people in common who link two key custodiansVisualizations – a picture paints a thousand words – maybe more – our secret sauce is our ability to visualize what relationships look like and how people connect with one another. The non-obvious suddenly becomes obvious.
I don’t expect you to read these use cases, but I will re-iterate some key points:-Key relationships map was able to prioritize the key custodians (85 custodians were NOT relevant) – saving over-collectionReduced scope and cost of collection/production request.Defensible methodology – documented and comprehensiveIdentified new, relevant custodians, including contractor (not on org chart)Found key case intelligence (from contractor’s emails) that swayed the outcome of the caseTurnaround – less than 48 hours
