Explaining the Electronic Discovery Reference Model

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) was initially conceived by George Socha Jr,. founder of Socha Consulting LLC in St. Paul, Minn., and Tom Gelbmann, managing director of Gelbmann & Associates in Roseville, Minn. The reference model divides the e-discovery process into six areas -- information management, identification, preservation/collection, processing/review/analysis, production and presentation -- and identifies the functions associated with each area. Storage is typically involved in the earlier stages of the model.

"If you don't have experience in e-discovery, EDRM is useful. It is good for showing what the issues are," said Mark Brennan, counsel at Bryan Cave LLP in Kansas City.

"For an IT person faced with finding e-discovery tools, the first thing I would do is take the EDRM diagram and go talk with your legal counsel," said Matthew Todd, CISO and vice president of risk and technical operations at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Financial Engines Inc. The legal counsel should tell you which functions the IT group should do in-house. Then you can start looking at tools.

Where EDRM breaks down is with naming tools. "It's very useful, except it doesn't name tools," said Lance Rea, chief information officer (CIO) at New York City law firm Davis & Gilbert LLP. Actual products tend to overlap EDRM areas. For example, an archiving tool from the information management area will also perform search, making it useful for identification. Rea performs e-discovery searches with Microsoft Outlook and the firm's archiving tool, EMC Corp.'s EmailXtender.

The areas of e-discovery that involve storage the most include information management, identification and preservation/collection. Information management covers those things the storage group already handles, such as content management, records management, document management, CRM, email archiving and data archiving.

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Source: searchstorage.techtarget.com
By: Alan Radding