Below is an excerpt from the KMWorld article E-discovery in a Challenging Economy.  Contributing to this piece is eMag's very own Brett Tarr.

Finding The Haystack

Not every company is looking ahead and being prepared. Economic turmoil itself has made planning difficult and has brought on a number of interrelated outcomes with respect to managing data.

"Bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions, and downsizing all lead to the same basic result," says Brett Tarr, general counsel for eMag Solutions, which provides e-discovery services for litigation, regulation and compliance. "There is a need to find data, but an uncertainty about where it is."

One approach he recommends to prevent confusion is to create a formal data map that shows the physical flow of information through the organization. "In a bank, for example, the CFO might not still be there, but the data map would show whom he communicated with. You can find those people and get 90 percent of what you need." The map should be created as part of normal business operations and updated regularly. The map can save time when e-discovery is carried out, by eliminating the need to search certain devices.

"If the e-discovery is related to an HR case, and all that data is on one server," Tarr explains, "you don’t need to search all the others." Saving only the required and appropriate information is also important. "The organization should develop strategies for setting up retention policies for e-mail archiving and other data, so that the volume is minimized," he adds.

In addition, images should be created of all the devices used by individuals prior to their departure from the organization. "In certain types of bankruptcies related to an individual’s conduct, you might find that a lot of files had been copied from a directory to a portable hard drive, or that information had been deleted," says Tarr. "Once the image is preserved, it can be used for business continuity as well as legal purposes." It’s important, however, to make sure the information is captured so that it is forensically preserved.

To view the full article at KMWorld, click here.