Collection Processes
During the relevant data must be collected from each organization or custodian to be deemed part of an appropriate and defensible collection. Costs and benefits must be weighed to determine what is appropriate and reasonable for the litigation. Courts are increasingly being asked to rule on what must be produced when the parties have difficulty agreeing on the appropriate balance. As technology advances, the amount of data that can reasonably be reviewed is increasing, so too is the amount of data that must be collected.
The collector must be careful to employ all specifications from the identification team in order to collect all the targeted data and only the targeted data. Identifiers often target data by:
- User/owner or location;
- Date;
- Type of systems or files; and
- Keywords contained in files or systems Regardless of the identification method, however, nearly all data must be collected from a media or a network.
Collection Categories
Collection Guidelines
Based on the results of the Identification phase, adequate planning of the search
strategy is a major key to overall effectiveness in the collection effort.
Cost Drivers
As many companies manage terabytes of information containing potentially relevant
information, it is essential to use a culling methodology to try to get the data
down to a responsive set of information.