Early Case Assessment Early Case Assessment is a critical step in the discovery process, in that it offers decision makers a detailed view of the nature and content of data they may need to review. Discovery costs are usually the most financially burdensome aspect of most litigation, for both plaintiffs and defendants. And the bulk of the expense goes toward electronic data processing and document review. Altep's expert consultants can use Early Case Assessment to help attorneys substantially - and safely - reduce the size of the data population that will be processed and reviewed, by providing detailed summary reports of file types, sizes, dates, e-mail attachments, duplicates, folders and media, and much more. What's more, it's an invaluable tool when preparing for the 26(f) Meet and Confer. After review the Early Case analysis, attorneys can make better-enformed discovery decisions. In collaboration with their e-discovery experts, they can develop culling and filtering strategies that zero in on the most important data and limit the volume - and associated cost - of information that must be processed and reviewed. Altep's Early Case Assessment service: extracts emails, attachments and metadata generates hash values detects and identifies duplicate documents creates anl inventory database of all documents and emails analyzes .zip, .rar and other archive formats uses the National Software Reference Library to identify and remove known system files provides more than fifty different types of analytics and reports to allow an in-depth understanding of any data population, regardless of its size or makeup.
Available Report Types: Email Conversation Summary Email Attachments Summary Document File Types Summary Document File Dates Summary Office Documents Summary Email "To/From" Pairings Summary Email "To" Summary Email "From" Summary Folders and Media Summary Containers Summary Exact Duplicate Document Detection (using both MD5 and SHA-1) Duplicate Document Detail Full document inventory of all data Extensive 26(f) Report for meet and confer preparation
Litigation Preparedness and Management
Our Consultants can help you to define causation, clarify your goals, and create a solid, defensible discovery management plan. We’re broadly staffed, with decades of experience in the corporate legal and law firm environments, and our service-oriented technology, data and project management teams are an excellent resource throughout the discovery lifecycle.
Whether you’re preparing for a current case or looking toward the possibility of future litigation, a thorough and consistent discovery management program is a critical aspect of your organization's litigation management efforts. To assist in the development of such a program, Altep will first work with your legal and technology departments to create a “data map” so that key persons know where the critical data resides. Next, we’ll spend time with the various corporate departments to outline an appropriate data retention program and ensure that it is well-documented and consistently applied. Finally, we’ll propose a proactive approach to data collection, processing and re-purposing that will save both time and money.
Now that the Federal Rules have been amended to explicitly direct parties to account for all electronically stored information, it is imperative that corporate counsel possess a thorough understanding of the organization’s electronic information infrastructure. Attorneys can no longer wait for IT personnel to deliver the data - instead, attorneys must be meaningfully involved.
By engaging in the development of a discovery management initiative and implementing proactive preparedness methods, Altep can help you create a more defensible climate for both current and future litigation. And our experience has shown that preparedness saves an organization time and money when and if litigation does arise.
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