Given these considerations, the collections process is showing signs of moving away from service providers and coming in-house. There are several factors controlling this movement including:
High cost of culling. The amount of collected data is always larger than the data that will actually be reviewed. This means the collected data sets must be culled down to the most relevant set of data – a necessary, but often expensive process. The more relevant the initial collected set, the less money and time the culling process will take. This is why attorneys are increasingly looking to identification and collection tools that collect more data faster and with fewer non-relevant documents. This makes collections an increasingly rich space for eDiscovery purchasing, and necessarily involves IT at least as an influencer and often as a purchaser.
Demand for faster collections. Attorneys used to be able to plead “undue burden” when faced with large-scale collection demands. 不过, judges are increasingly unwilling to grant the plea to companies with poorly controlled storage environments. This trend increases the need for collection software tools and effective collection processes. This naturally falls into IT’s area.
Double-duty products. Collections tools are not necessarily just for eDiscovery and/or compliance. Most eDiscovery collections vendors have engineered multiple business process support into their collections products, such as storage or archive management. Examples include email archiving with eDiscovery options from Iron Mountain (纽约证券交易所: IRM) or Symantec (纳斯达克: SYMC), and storage management with eDiscovery support from StoredIQ or Digital Reef. These and similar approaches encourage IT to think “win-win” by using the same product to support eDiscovery and to improve data management.
