Electronic Discovery

Electronic Discovery (also known as eDiscovery) refers to the process by which electronically stored information is sought, located, secured and searched with a view to its use as evidence in a criminal or civil legal dispute. Espion has developed significant expertise in this highly detail-orientated and often laborious field. We provide legal advisers with a wealth of experience and the latest technologies that provide a comprehensive and meticulous means capable of instigating and running the most challenging local and multi-jurisdictional eDiscovery projects. Espion follows the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) as documented at http://www.edrm.net to any electronic discovery project. Launched in 2005 by George Socha and Tom Gelbmann, EDRM develops guidelines and standards for electronic discovery consumers and providers. For more information on this model click here. The following diagram outlines the main phases of the EDRM model.

  • Information Management – Applies best practices to how all relevant documents are preserved in the event of pending litigation or criminal action against an organisation company.
  • Identification - Identifies the relevant custodians and maps their relevant data sources.
  • Collection & Preservation - Acquires electronic information (data) marked as potentially relevant in the identification phase. Electronic information should be collected in a manner that is comprehensive, maintains its content integrity and preserves its form. Preservation and Collection efforts typically follow the methodologies outlined in the ACPO guidelines, whereby all sources of potential evidence (including metadata) are acquired in accordance with leading practice standards, the integrity of evidence is guaranteed, chain-of-custody records maintained, detailed documentation sets and acquired evidence securely stored and transported to the destination of processing. Espion use forensic software tools (typically Encase Forensic and/or FTK Imager) to collect and preserve data in a forensically sound manner. Espion can provide guidance and assistance in relation to:

Litigation Hold
Forensic Collection
Self-collection Consulting
Early Case Assessment (ECA)

  • Processing - Espion maintains an industry leading data processing facility capable of processing large volumes of data rapidly. Our facility is housed in a secure (ISO 27001 certified), best-in-class, resilient data centre. We use data filtering techniques, de-duplication and early case assessment to reduce the cost of legal review. Secure remote access is provided to a legal review platform. We have the ability to quickly establish data processing facilities at a client site.
  • Review & Analysis

Data Hosting – Using a secure ISO 27001 certified data centre
On-site Hosting – Rapidly establish an on-site processing and hosting capability
Legal Review – A leading end-to-end legal review platform accessed securely via a web browser
eDiscovery Software & Training – We assist organisations that want to develop an in-house capability and provide the necessary software and training

  • Production & Presentation - Espion has considerable experience producing data in a variety of forms, from native to PDF or TIFF.

TIFF or PDF Conversion
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
“Bates” Labelling/Endorsing
Printing/”Blowbacks”
Database Support