Law Times

Page 8 December 7, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com Purge old information Creating a data map can rein in litigation costs BY YAMRI TADDESE Law Times magine having to listen to 1,200 backup tapes dating back several years to find the five or six that you actually need. That's exactly what Christo- pher Purdon, ligation support manager at McMillan LLP, once had to do for a client that did not keep a log of what was contained on its tapes. The work was not just tedious but costly, too, Pur- don said. If getting an e-discovery request means your client or company is scurrying to find information with a vague idea of where it might be, expect to pay a steep price for it, according to experts who spoke at this year's annual Ontario e-Discovery In- stitute 2015 conference. "If you've seen the bills, scramble mode means very ex- pensive," said David Meadows, associate partner at Ernst & Young Global Limited's fraud investigation and dispute ser- vices practice. That's why Purdon and Meadows said building "a data map" of your company is prov- ing more important than ever as the number of data repositories continues to grow, encom- passing everything from cellphones to instant mes- sages, cloud services, and e-mail. "What a data map does is it captures the insti- tutional memory about the IT environment and makes that information immedi- ately available for analysis, not only for the internal employees at that organi- zation but for legal counsel when they need to start to capture and look at the re- cords of the company," Pur- don said. "Litigation and any in- vestigatory action in an organization can be quite time-consuming and dis- ruptive to the individuals working at that organiza- tion," he added, but the pro- cess doesn't have to be so chaotic. A data map would iden- tify specific sources of data and list the kind and range of data they contain, as well as the retention period for the data, the file types contained, and a brief description of the contents of the data. The map would also note who owns the data and if there is anything inaccessible in a specific data source. Purdon said data sources you should begin to look at include: e-mail, video, social media, vid- eos, news feeds, user documents, archives, and cloud services. Most companies' IT depart- ments keep a systems listing for their own purposes, and they're a great starting point to build- ing a data map, Meadows said. Another tip, he said, is to purge outdated information. "Get rid of your old stuff if you don't need it," he told at- tendees at the conference, held at the Ontario Bar Association in Toronto in early November. In identifying and mapping sources, it's good to prioritize, said Meadows. "I have yet to see a case where we didn't go to e- mail and I have yet to see a case where we didn't go to user docs at some point," he said. "We al- ways seem to start at e-mail and then we go to user docs and then it starts to get squishier at that point." The priority of sources also depends on the kind of organi- zation that's doing an e-discov- ery, Meadows said. "It might be that the litiga- tion is about financial systems, and in that case you might have e-mail, but you might also want to go into your general ledgers," he said. "Looking at your previ- ous history of litigation is a good place to start." Track the patterns of where you've gone to look for data in the past and what people are commonly asking from you, and use that information to de- termine what your priority re- positories are, Meadows said. Once you know your "prior- ity one" sources, figure out what the less commonly sought, but still important, data repositories are, Meadows continued, add- ing that these may be video and audio files as well as personal phones. "Personal phones nowadays have a lot of information on them. It really depends on how your systems are con- figured and how the e-mail is replicated between sys- tems," he said. Although, from a liti- gation standpoint, only e- mails are typically looked at on personal cellphones, Meadows said that texting apps such as Whatsapp contain information that could become important for litigation purposes. In those cases, it's im- portant to understand whether the data source is the smartphone or the app on the smartphone, and how it might be accessed, Meadows said, adding that it's important to un- derstand what policies your company has on how smartphones are managed. Instant messaging sys- tems such as Yammer are becoming popular in workplaces, but companies often neglect to place policies around their use and what kind of information should be stored in them, according to Meadows. "That's something else to think about when you're creating the data map." When it comes to building a good data map, befriending the IT professionals in your company is wise. Meadows told lawyers to open up lines of com- munication with their IT de- partments so that they're aware of the ramifications of new sys- tems before they're purchased and implemented. And don't forget to chart third-party cloud services on your data map if you're using them, Meadows said. "It seems like everyone is moving to Of- fice 365 or Dropbox." New digi- tal communication tools have meant "a massive explosion of data," he said. A big part of the challenge in tracking digital information is the lack of awareness about ex- actly what information certain devices are collecting, Purdon said. "We're finding that more things are starting to generate information and capture infor- mation. It's the whole Internet of things out there where cars are now accessing the Internet and capturing data," Purdon added. "Is that now an area we may need to consider?" "Understanding what infor- mation is being recorded and where it is is really important," Meadows agreed. "If you want to stay up to date on new sources of data, talk to a 13-year-old," he added, only partly joking. LT 'Looking at your previous history of litigation is a good place to start,' says David Meadows. Photo: Yamri Taddese FOCUS ON E-discovery I CANADIAN LAW LIST 2015 KEEPING PACE WITH THE CHANGING LEGAL COMMUNITY FOR OVER 130 YEARS This is more than a phone book. It is your instant connection to Canada's legal network. 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