The Discovery Plan is an important new element in Ontario litigations. H&A eDiscovery’s experts can provide early, detailed analysis of the anticipated volume, types and locations of electronic data in a matter. This information will enable a legal team to bring informed and objective scope recommendations to Discovery Plan negotiations with opposing counsel.
In Ontario, amendments to the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, effective January 1, 2010, require the parties involved in a matter to agree to a written Discovery Plan before attempting to obtain evidence. Ranging from a simple letter summarizing a meet and confer session to an in-depth, formal technical agreement, the Discovery Plan format should reflect the complexity and importance of the case and the amounts at stake. In most cases of significance, a thorough understanding of the anticipated volume, types and location of the electronic data, and the associated costs of collection, processing and review, will be required before agreement on proportionate discovery parameters can be reached.
The objectives of eDiscovery custodian interviews are to identify the type of electronically stored information (“ESI”) that each custodian creates and/or accesses, and to identify the locations where that information resides. In conjunction with your legal team, H&A eDiscovery’s experts can prepare detailed questionnaires and conduct interviews with data custodians, IT and management teams to identify and analyze the format and volume of data, mapping out how and where data is generated, stored, transported and duplicated across offices, networks and systems.
H&A’S experts can consolidate information from custodian and IT interviews into a Data Map – a detailed summary of the IT system from a litigation point of view, which enables a legal team to clearly see where potential sources of ESI reside. The Data Map can function as a framework for discovery planning meet and confer sessions.
A key aspect of a Discovery Plan’s intended scope of document discovery is an agreement on search parameters, such as time frame, custodians, file types, file locations, etc. H&A offers real-time Data Metrics reporting that enables rapid assessment of the population of documents to be reviewed. These reports can be used by your legal team to determine the anticipated volume of records, reach agreement on search parameters and plan the methodology for review and/or phased review.
Data preservation is an important consideration in any case dealing with electronic data, and the new Ontario Discovery Plan model documents envision a Preservation Plan as a key element of the Discovery Plan. H&A’s Data Map reports can help to identify the location and nature of stored data associated with custodians of interest, enabling calculation of the anticipated volume of records, costs and resource requirements for a preservation proposal. H&A can also provide valuable advice regarding an optimal preservation process.
Our professionals can help your legal team develop a preliminary plan to preserve and collect each type of ESI and source, taking into account physical access to the information, available IT resources, the critical status of the storage system to the corporation’s operations, and the approximate collection cost.
H&A can advise your legal team on the most efficient and cost-effective approaches to production exchange for the anticipated volume of data, including recommendations on the reduction of duplication.