I have received a lot of questions recently regarding whether it is defensible for a corporation to allow its employees to self collect relevant documents for litigation.  Self collection refers to a collection process where in-house or outside counsel articulates to each employee (“custodian” of records) the scope of relevance and that custodian takes on the task of identifying any documents they may have that are potentially responsive and isolates them for use in the litigation.

Though self collection continues to be popular as a collection methodology, some argue it is not defensible and that collection should instead be completed using technology solutions that search data at the custodian, department or enterprise level to identify relevant documents.

My take on this is that there is a time for each methodology and often a case may call for a hybrid approach.  Self collection is defensible in the right case if planned and executed correctly.  There are some types of cases where self collection does not make sense.  For example, if your company is sued because a custodian was sending harassing emails, it may be “grossly negligent” to depend on the employee who allegedly sent the harassing emails to locate, preserve, collect and turn those emails over for review and production.  You may recognize this fact pattern from Jones v. Bremen High School District, 228, 2010 WL 2106640 (N.D. Ill. May 25, 2010).

However, for most commercial litigation, the primary hurdle is developing a defensible plan and executing that plan properly.  This is especially true when a large organization has frequent litigation involving so-called serial custodians.

via Self Collection: Is It Defensible? | The e-Discovery Myth.