The document presents a practical approach to legacy data remediation, highlighting legal and technical perspectives on managing paper and electronic data. It outlines reasons for remediation, risk-focused frameworks, and real-world examples from companies that sought to dispose of legacy data while maintaining compliance with legal holds. The overall emphasis is on establishing efficient strategies to navigate retention costs and regulatory requirements while minimizing business disruptions.

1. Legacy Data Remediation: A Practical Approach
Presented to the Association of Litigation Support Professionals
Wednesday, March 30, 2011

2. Today’s Panel
Andy Cosgrove
Partner, Redgrave LLP
acosgrove@redgravellp.com
Christian Rummelhoff
Senior Analyst, Redgrave LLP
crummelhoff@redgravellp.com
Diana Fasching
Senior Analyst, Redgrave LLP
dfasching@redgravellp.com
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3. Presentation Goals
• Gain legal and technical perspectives into a legacy
data remediation project
• Identify unique issues associated with the remediation
of paper and electronic legacy data
• Introduce ways to manage costs and limit burdens on
everyday business operations
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4. Top 5 Reasons to Take Notice
TOP #5) Litigation Costs
#4) Litigation Risks; Why Keep Tomorrow’s
Smoking Gun?
#3) Reputation Risks; The WikiLeaks Effect
#2) State & Federal Privacy Regulations
#1) Retention Costs; The Box Burden
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5. Re-Defining Legacy Data
Paper: Electronic:
• Paper files, Photographs, • Old Backup Tapes, Backups
Marketing Materials, and Other Made Prior to Data Migration
Hardcopy Documents • Orphaned ESI (e.g.
• Materials Stored On and/or departmental file shares)
Offsite (e.g. Iron Mountain) • Inactive/Decommissioned
• Documents in the Possession Servers
of Third Parties • Retained Collections of Hard
Drives, CDs or other Media
• Data in the Possession of Third
parties
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6. A Process for Addressing Legacy Data
Iterative High-Level Risk-Focused
Identify Disposition Understand Data Prepare Information
Constraints Store(s) for Comparison
- Retention Obligations - Origins - Preservation Matrix and
- Statutory, Regulatory, - Date Ranges Materials Index
Common Law Requirements - Formats - Similar Measures Allow
- Contractual Requirements - Content Direct Comparison
- Legal Hold Obligations - Custodian
Disposition of Data Apply Risk Assessment
(Reasonable Investigation)
- Is Info Likely Relevant?
- Is Info Likely Unique?
- Duty to Preserve/Maintain?
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7. Remediation Framework/Considerations
• 3 Key Considerations: Iterative, High Level, Risk Focused
• General Tips
– Work From Available Information; Infer Where Reasonable
– Identify Best Value Approaches to Additional Investigation
– Document Each Step
• Identify Deletion/Destruction Constraints
– Identify/Clarify Constraints at Issue Using Measurable Descriptors
• Understand Data Stores
– Origins, Date Ranges, Formats, Content, Custodian
– Key Differences in Population – Breakdown Material into Groups
– Additional Investigation: Sampling, Interviews, Database Mining
• Prepare Information for Comparison
– Constrains and Materials - Use Same/Similar Descriptors
• Apply Risk Assessment to Identify Disposable Information
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8. Paper – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Fortune 250 company with over 50K boxes of hard
copy paper records eligible for disposition under the
record schedule
• Desire to dispose of material not subject to legal hold
• Significant information available about the material in
the boxes; less information available on open legal
holds
• Cost of assessment needed to be proportional to the
cost of storing the material
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9. Paper – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Validated information about the materials
– Sampled boxes to confirm accuracy of indices
– QC missing and suspect information (e.g., dates)
• Gathered information regarding legal holds
– Reviewed all open holds and used available matter reporting capabilities
– Follow-up
• Created “Preservation Matrix”
– Consolidated holds into manageable number of categories
– Each category had as broad a scope as the sum of the component holds
– Primary considerations: Record Code, Date Range; Also Geography,
Department,
– Obtained case-team sign-off on hold scope assumptions
– High quality of indices meant no need for equivalent categorization of
material
• Iterative, Risk-Based Assessment
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10. Paper – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Recommended reasonable and legally defensible
disposition of specific material
– One third cleared at the first iteration (Record Code)
– Another third cleared at the Record Code by date iteration
– Final third held by a handful of cases requiring case-specific additional
follow-up (collection, case team identification of relevant materials)
• Other significant highlights:
– Process from took longer than originally planned –the evolving hold
environment (as cases open/close) complicated analysis
– Outside counsel required some case-specific additional steps
• Next time…
– Identify critical cases (and most conservative attorneys) and involve
those case teams much earlier in the process to prevent delays
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11. ESI – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Global 500 company with over 60K legacy media
items in one division
• Mostly backup tapes
– Varying tape types and backup mechanisms (including NDMP)
• Media assumed to contain emails, user files,
application data and other unknown content
• Little to no inventory information available for a large
subset of the media items
• Desire to dispose of this information to reduce legal
risk and storage costs
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12. ESI – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Identified team members
• Researched as much information as possible regarding
media items and legal holds
• Established sampling hypothesis
– Materials on backup media were largely duplicative because legal hold
custodians were preserving materials in active storage
• Developed sampling strategy
– Selected less than 50 (out of over 60K) media items to sample, targeting
different date ranges and content (both email and file share backups)
• Restored, indexed and then filtered data based on legal
hold keywords
• Reviewed for “responsiveness” and selected statistically
valid set of emails and user files
• Worked with custodians (and IT for former employees) to
validate hypothesis
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13. ESI – A Real World Example
Situation Process Resolution
• Recommended reasonable and legally defensible
disposition of media items
• Proceeded with destruction/recycling of approximately
80% of legacy media items
• Continued hold on the remaining media items
• Other significant highlights:
– Process from kick-off to recommendations took about 8 months —
several months longer than originally planned
– Had to be flexible and adjust plan as issues were encountered
– End result was well-received within Legal and by IT
– Considering different approach on subsequent projects to minimize
vendor costs
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14. Other Real World Examples
Examples?
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15. Additional Resources
• www.redgravellp.com:
– Webcasts: “What do you want your legacy to be?”
– Link: Sedona Commentary on Inactive Information
– Podcast Links:
• Dealing with Legacy Data – What to do About ESI Messes Today
• Will Judges Think it is Okay to Use Clustering & Suggestive Coding Tools
• Organizations:
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