eDiscovery is subject to trends, like fashion or the latest iPhone application. The newest trend climbing the charts is project management, so I thought it was timely to write about project planning before all the cool kids go sit at another table.
Now, I've had some experience with project planning in my time, and what I've learned is that no plan survives contact with (fill in the blank). Some have even used this as an excuse NOT to plan, since the estimates will always be off, targets will be missed and you'll spend all your time explaining why. However, this misses the point, since the object of the exercise is to figure out what you know, and more importantly, what you don't know.
If this is beginning to sound like the gibberish you'd get in Wonderland, pause for a moment and reflect on this: if you know what you don't know, you can build in extra time and resources as a contingency. If you know what you don't know, you can make it a priority to go looking for information to fill in the blank and firm up your estimates.
Some things to consider in drafting the plan:
- Scope of the information to be collected, processed, reviewed and produced, and any decisions about staging production
- Structure of the project team for each of the main activities (collection, processing…), including description of skills required
- Resourcing – internal resources combined with external contracts, and their availability
- Budget for external resources, services and tools
- Roles and responsibilities of the members of the team
- Governance – who makes decisions about scope, budget, resources and timeframes
- Assumptions (e.g. volumes expected from sources, rates of collection, processing and review, availability of internal resources, time required for tool acquisition, among others)
- Risks (e.g. new allegations or defences added to pleadings, unexpected problems with degraded or encrypted media or files) that could threaten delivery of the project within budget and schedule, and mitigation strategies
- Documentation to be developed – such as coding and processing manuals, instructions for review for relevance and privilege, etc.
- Work breakdown structure of the tasks, their dependencies, who is assigned to each and the schedule
- Quality control – processes used to ensure integrity and completeness, and conformance with scope for collection and processing, and compliance with instructions for review.
- Communications, including progress reporting, exception reporting, and problem tracking and resolution.
Respond: make a comment | read the 3 comments
Share:
Email
|
Save as PDF | Print
|
Bookmark & Share
|
|
More: in Practice of Law: Practice Management | from Peg Duncan
|
the count:
8208 posts | 11376 comments
recent comments  
You should assess whether you can accept the financial risks associated with taking the matter, just as clients will assess whether they can (and will) pay your fee. Spend time at the beginning of the. […] »»Practice Today’s Tip is a simple reminder to view by “latest activity date”. The Parliament is back in session and those Slaw Tips readers for whom monitoring legislation is a regular … »»Research When everyone in the firm is required to report monthly to all other partners, you instill a culture in the firm that is self-correcting. If someone fails to regularly meet their financial goals, you. […] »»Practice
-
Available online today are four new chapters of the publication Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report, which explores the socio-demographic and economic circumstances of Canadian women in general.
-
The bill amends the Constitution Act, 1867 by readjusting the number of members and the representation of the provinces in the House of Commons.
-
-
Blueseed plans to buy a ship and turn it into a floating incubator anchored in international waters off the coast of California.
-
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle.
-
-
"…the IPC has exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether a record is in the custody or control of a university in the context of an access request…"
-
-
John J.L. Hunter, Q.C. of Vancouver has been elected President for 2011-2012
-
Detailed results from 321 members.
These summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book.
More information.
-
Administrative Law - Judicial review - General - Scope or standard of review
Ten individuals complained to the Information and Privacy Commissioner that the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) disclosed, in contravention of the Personal Information Protection Act, their personal information between October 13 and December 2, ...
-
Civil Rights - Property - Search and seizure - Search - What constitutes
The accused was charged with possession of child pornography and making available child pornography. The accused brought an application, alleging several violations of his rights under the Charter.
The Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s ...
-
Constitutional Law - Extent of powers conferred - Double aspect doctrine - General
In provincial references, both the Alberta Court of Appeal (510 A.R. 200; 527 W.A.C. 200) and the Quebec Court of Appeal (2011 QCCA 591), concluded that the proposed Canadian Securities Act (CSA) was unconstitutional. A ...
-
Criminal Law - Procedure - Charge or directions - Jury or judge alone - Directions regarding evidence generally
The accused was charged with breach of trust by a public official contrary to s. 122 of the Criminal Code. The trial judge acquitted the accused. ...
-
Civil Rights - Trials - Due process, fundamental justice and fair hearings - Criminal and quasi-criminal proceedings - Delay (Charter, s. 7)
MacIntosh was charged on three informations with a total of 43 counts of sexual offences against nine complainants in the 1970s. The first information ...
-
Real Property Tax - Valuation - Business property - Considerations
Two breweries’ respective properties were assessed as special properties under the Assessment Act, 2006. They appealed their respective municipal tax assessments to the Review Commissioner. The Commissioner dismissed the appeals. The breweries each appealed. The appeals ...
-
Barristers and Solicitors -Duty to court - General principles - Duty of integrity
The applicant (Girao) and Allstate Insurance Co. disputed entitlements to accident benefits. The respondent law firm represented Allstate. Girao complained to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (PCC) against Allstate for disclosing her ...
-
Criminal Law - Sentencing - Sentencing procedure and rights of the accused - Plea bargain or joint submission - Effect of
The accused was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for three breaches of a recognizance under s. 810.2 of the Criminal Code. He appealed and applied ...
-
Practice - Persons who can sue and be sued - Individuals and corporations - Status or standing - Class actions - Members of class - General
The plaintiffs were Inuit or Métis persons who were forced to attend certain residential schools in Labrador and Newfoundland. They ...
This is a listing of a few upcoming events in Canada of interest to lawyers, law students, legal librarians, and others involved in the practice of law.
Clicking on any event in the list below will give you access to more information and to links allowing you to see the full entry and to add the event to your own calendar.
Click this link for a fuller version of the TalkLaw/ParLoi calendar of events and for instructions as to how to add events and calendars to your own calendar.
|
Peg,
This post comes in handy as project management has been making important leeway in the legal market, more or less as it did a couple of years ago in the IT arena. Perhaps e-discovery is part of the equation in that legal and IT departments are cross-pollinating in the course of an e-discovery project or to ensure their corporation's litigation readiness.
It seems you allude to 2 different types of project management. The first one in the course of a law suit or an investigation where the project must be scoped, "milestoned", budgeted for, etc. as opposed, or should I say in complement, to litigation readiness which includes a fair deal of project management. My experience is that the development and implementation of a litigation readiness plan, with its policies, processes, teams and technologies, forces organisations to think in terms of project management. Accordingly, once the plan is fully implemented, organisations that end up being sued or investigate have a clear roadmap with checklists which help them approach their case with a pro-active project management strategy.
To me, project management is the only way to effectively track and document the process that was followed. Accordingly, it is the only way to prove one's approach was proportionate and defensible.
Cheers!
Dj)
Peg, Dominic
I am reminded of the quote, usually attributed to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who knew a thing or two about planning (e.g. D-Day!)
"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
Andrew Terrett, PMP
Director of Knowledge Management
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Hello Peg,
Great post and I am in full agreement with the need for a solid plan. In fact, without a proper plan and solid eDiscovery methodology, one may have serious trouble defending their position in court!
Penalties, fines, the cost of redoing the work, new strict deadlines for new productions, and bad PR can seriously harm you. Every day there is more case law on parties that are sanctioned for data spoliation. It is critical that you carefully follow the rules that are in place. Leverage audits reports and implement quality control mechanisms. Know what you do with information and know exactly how your tools work. Also, your counsel must be able to defend your processes in court against objections from opposing counsel (and your external counsel is not always the most technical person!).
Responding to requests for electronic information can be perplexing. First, identifying responsive information from huge stores of data can be time consuming, disruptive, and costly. Second, extracting data from computers in ways that reliably preserve evidence is not a simple undertaking, as data can easily be altered either intentionally or accidentally. Recognizing these facts, litigators and investigators in both civil and criminal matters have begun to focus carefully on electronic discovery and the role of computer forensics — the science of reliably recovering and handling electronic storage media and the data contained therein so as to provide the appropriate foundations for admissible evidence.
This is why you need a well documented and proven methodology, including embedded quality control, auditing and a fully documented chain of custody.
Johannes C. Scholtes
Chief Strategy Officer
ZyLAB North America LLC