Preservation for electronic discovery has become a complicated, multi-faceted legal, technical and logistical challenge as data volume within organizations continues to expand exponentially. After litigation hold orders have been executed and data collected, an organization needs to determine which party is best suited to store and manage the preserved data. A new concept for preservation is emerging in the legal community that a neutral, third party may be better suited to manage data preservation.

There are three classic situations that significantly benefit from Evidence Archiving.

PRESERVATION CATALOG

An organization sometimes needs an easy-to-use catalog of raw preserved data. This need is typically due to the sheer volume of data, the complexity of the data or the number of intertwined matters.

Sfile’s Preservation Cataloguing solution delivers an extremely cost effective storage solution that is typically less expensive than in-house storage costs. Your raw preserved data can be in the form of file collections, disk images and tape backups. Each collection is loaded into Sfile along with any supporting documentation such as chain-of-custody logs into a browsable folder structure. Key metadata from loose file collections is extracted so users can search and find documents according to file name/email subject line, last modify date, author, file size and source (e.g. custodian, party, system, tape ID, etc.). Collections created by disk imaging using products like Encase or Norton Ghost or images from backup tapes are loaded into Sfile with the file name, file size and source available to users. Customers can optionally have Sfile expand disk images or tape backups in order to have a more detailed understanding of the contents of these collections.

Because the preserved data is managed by Sfile, the preserved data can be quickly targeted, processed and made accessible for review.

PRESERVATION ARCHIVE

When organizations have multiple related matters, they can significantly benefit from the ability to repeatedly reuse data across collections. Sfile’s Preservation Archive solution consists of fully indexed collections that are immediately available to legal teams. Because the preserved data is fully searchable, legal teams can more efficiently perform data analysis as part of an early case assessment protocol, prepare for meet and confer conferences, test filtering strategies and cull documents for immediate access for review.

PROACTIVE ARCHIVING

The process of capturing and preserving an organizations’ electronic data on an ongoing basis provides significant reductions of time and money in preparing for current or future electronic evidence productions. This capability offers the highest advantage for corporations in responding to audits, investigations and lawsuits because it provides an accessible view of electronic evidence across the entire enterprise.

Using a proactive evidence preservation approach, when a General Counsel, the head of corporate litigation or a third party advisor has the tools to assess the company’s legal exposure early in the litigation process or even before litigation begins. Sfile works with several leading data collection, information management and email archiving vendors in order to design and implement a comprehensive proactive archiving strategy and execution plan.