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Discovery of electronic documents can be one of the most expensive aspects of a lawsuit in today's information-glutted society if left undone until the 11th hour - to say nothing of the role it plays in obtaining a favorable judgment.
A key aspect of ediscovery is the creation of a data map to determine precisely what information is available within an organization and where it resides. This is a process that should begin long before a company ever finds itself in court.
THE PHONE RINGS. IT IS THE general counsel. The organization may be sued over patent infringement. Counsel knows that this could be "The Big One." All sorts of data, documents, metadata, emails, and other forms of information may be required. Counsel asks IT: Do you have, or can you get together, a list of all systems and the data they contain?" There is a long, silent pause on the phone. Then the IT manager says "Well, we do have a list of systems. Let me send it your way." Counsel gets the list. It is nothing close to the data map it needs. Instead it is a list of servers, their IP addresses, platform configuration, and their physical rack location in the data center. Good information for disaster recovery purposes, but not particularly helpful in court.
"Well, this is the best I've got," comes the retort from IT. "We do not have a data map nor would we know how to create one - and, by the way, do you really think we have the bandwidth to work on this now?"
WH? YOU? THE CHALLENGE OF DATA MAPPING
So who gets stuck with the job? You do. You might argue that "IT manages all the infrastructure and stuff, why couldn't they just run an inventory on their systems?" And IT will reply that "Well, we do manage the infrastructure, but we know very little about the inputs, outputs, documents, records, and other information on these applications. Go talk to the business side." And you go to business, and business will tell you that "I just use the system and click these buttons on the screen. The system is a black box to me. I have no idea about all of the underlying...