Litigation Readiness

Allison Brecher, Marsh & McLennan Co.Hilary Lane, NBCCheryl Strom, McDonaldsBruce Whitney, Air ProductsDominic Jaar, Bell Canada

Identifying Risk Areas Developing a Solution “Selling” it to Management

Telecommunications – Dominic JaarFood Services – Cheryl StromMedia/Entertainment – Hilary LaneFinancial Services – Allison BrecherIndustrial – Bruce Whitney

Need for Uniformity and Cost-effective Solution to

E-Discovery

Built a custom solution to manage legal holds and document preservation Created a short webinar for outside counsel describing our systems and capabilitiesPreparing web-based training for employees involved in a legal hold

Emphasize cost savings, both on outside counsel spend and reducing riskEvaluated products on the market and assessed cost of and time involved in building a custom solutionThe e-discovery rules will likely catch on outside the US…better to be prepared now

Cost control in a new environment

E-discovery is still at its early stage in CanadaHigher management sees it as an extraordinary situation where they would rather spend the money on a case by case basis rather than invest in education, processes and toolsMeanwhile, the legal department’s budget is not increased while the expenses relating to e-discovery soar

Benchmark peer companiesCreated a Steering CommitteeEducate each other and management about e-discoveryHandle legal hold notices and prioritize technology investments

Compliance with Legal Hold PolicyGetting employees to understand their responsibilitiesMaking the process easier for in-house counsel

Employee training and certificationCurrently testing various solutions to more easily search for relevant ESI

Improving communications while promoting e-discovery

awareness and enhancing technology capabilities

Established working group of litigators and IT personnel to collect documents, monitor/prioritize, consider best practices Hire IT personnel dedicated to e-discoveryNew software

Starting from scratch

Sweeping changes in e-discovery obligations required:

creation of uniform procedures major technology investments

Purchased two software products to classify records on a company-wide basis and implement legal hold noticesCurrently developing e-discovery extranetConsidering selection of single firm to handle e-discovery issues

Many employees join company via acquisitionNeeded to develop cohesive and uniform records management strategy

Developing internal website based on Sharepoint with access given to records managersWebsite used to

maintain and revise records retention policiesfacilitate communication among different subsidiaries identify confidential data

Explosion of the volume of e-docs transformed litigators in records collectors and analystsLitigators spent a great deal of time

dealing with IS/IT understanding the infrastructure interviewing custodians

Developed a clear process to handle e-discovery by delegating different tasks to IS/IT, RM, security, etc. Put in place a semi-automated litigation hold procedure supported by interview forms

Legal Searches for Electronic InformationNeeded a way to search and preserve electronic information

Identified and evaluated various e-discovery solutions that would enable paralegals/attorneys to search electronic information across all repositories (including web-content) and preserve potentially relevant informationParalegals/attorneys would be able to cull out potentially relevant information before exporting to outside counsel for additional review