Electronic Discovery Ch. 6

The process of producing and receiving litigation documents in electronic format.

The pretrial stage of litigation where parties disclose to each other information about their case.

• 1. Taking pretrial oral testimony from parties and witnesses in the form of depositions
• 2. The exchange of written requests for information and interrogatories, and the responses to these requests
• 3. The exchange of statements of fact, called requests for admissions, which each party must admit or deny
• 4. The production of hard-copy documents in response to either a subpoena duces tecum (a command for a witness to appear at a certain time and place and bring documents or records) or request for the production of documents.

Term used by FRCP to refer to all electronic data, including writings, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, sound recordings, images, and other data compilations stored in any medium from which information can be obtained or translated.

An order suspending destruction or disposal of all relevant hard-copy and electronically stored information, instituted when a party reasonably anticipates litigation.

• The process of testing data to determine if it is appropriate for production.
• Also refers to the process of testing a database to see if it contains information relevant to the subject matter of the case.

The destruction or alteration of relevant documents (or other evidence) in litigation.

• 1. Accessible Data
• 2. Inaccessible Data

Data that have not been deleted and can be accessed without the use of special tools and/or software.

Data that can be accessed only with the use of special tools and/or software.

The ability to have privileged material that has been produced inadvertently returned with no waiver of privilege.

A provision of the FRCP providing that parties who act in good faith but inadvertently destroy ESI as a routine part of their information systems handling are not subject to sanctions for that destruction.