Electronic Evidence Discovery

Today attorneys find themselves deluged with new volumes of discoverable information, all electronically created and stored. Beyond paper files pertinent to a case, now e-mail messages, computer files, spreadsheets, word processing documents and all attachments must be considered when preparing for a case. At times multiple hard drives must be retrieved and searched.

The majority of business information is stored as electronic document data. This electronic data is a critical source of evidence in litigation. Due to the volume of electronic information, the courts have recognized how critical electronic discovery is to successfully navigating through a case. From collecting and reviewing data through electronic document production, effective management of your electronic information is critical to any Firm’s success moving forward. Your goal is to win. Our goal is to help you to do just that.

The process of converting electronic documents (application files) and e-mail into a standard graphical file format (PDF or TIFF), for easy viewing or printing to paper, and extracting all of the text for full-text searching. The images and text data can then be imported into any of the standard litigation support software packages or repositories, for use in discovery.

How does it work?

• Client provides Litigation Outsource with the electronic files.
• Litigation Outsource extracts all text from the application files and
  e-mail, along with the ‘meta-data’ of each file, and creates a database load file.
  Application Files: All files that are created by using a software program. These files contain the actual information formatted for that specific program. Examples include Excel® spreadsheets, Word® or WordPerfect® documents, and Adobe® PDF files.
  Meta-data: The information associated with an application file’s data elements or attributes. Typically, this includes file name, creation date, user name, file location, etc.
  Text Extraction: The process of removing all text from non-graphical application files or e-mail, for use in a full-text search database. E-mail text can be further segregated into fields, such as author, recipient, date, subject, etc.
  E-mail: Software programs such as Outlook®, Outlook Express®, Lotus Notes®, cc:mail® and eudora®, store all e-mail in large ‘application files’. The e-mail can be converted to an image (PDF or TIFF format) or printed to paper. All of the text can be extracted and imported into a database with fields, such as author, recipient, cc, date, subject, body of e-mail, etc. All attachments are also converted and linked to the original e-mail.
• Identification of duplicates and other filtering processes can eliminate unwanted files.
• E-mail, application files and graphic files are converted into a single, easy to use image format, and branded with a production number or a confidential designation.
• The image files and database load file can be easily imported into any major litigation support software programs, such as Concordance® and Summation®. The images can be printed with slip-sheets between documents, with custom footer information, such as a production number or a confidential designation.
• The legal team can now review and/or produce the documents.

Effective capture of meta data, cataloguing and indexing of electronic documents (including emails), together with creation of numbered images, for importation into your litigation support system. Litigation Outsource has developed strict methodology for the automatic capture of meta data. We recognize that every project is different, and that different documents allow different meta data to be captured automatically.

Upon receipt of the electronic documents, Litigation Outsource will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the types of documents that are to be processed and liaise closely with you to ensure that the meta data that you receive is in accordance with your requirements.

Litigation Outsource can extract metadata from common file types including:

• Email files (MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, Groupwize)
• Microsoft files (Word, Powerpoint, Visio, Project, Excel)
• WordPerfect
• Text files such as Rich Text Format and plain text
• HTML
• Image files such as GIF, TIFF, BMP, PDF, and JPEG
• Compressed files such as WinZip files can be extracted and these files can also be processed

Data output can be supplied in any format, including an MS Access multi-table format, and a "flat file" format.

In any discovery, the first step is to identify the documents that need to be collected in order to determine whether they are relevant to the issues at trial. Litigation Outsource can assist with the forensic retrieval and analysis of electronic data, including password cracking.