Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) study plan
CEDS · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 6 hours per week
E-Discovery Project Planning
Map the E-Discovery Project Planning domain into its component sub-areas and rank them by personal weakness
Define the phases of the EDRM and state the planning decisions that belong in each phase
Draft a one-page outline of a defensible project plan covering scope, custodians, sources, and budget
Identify the stakeholders and approval gates a project plan must account for
Your checkpoint
A one-page annotated EDRM phase map with planning decisions and stakeholders noted per phase
E-Discovery Project Planning
Construct a custodian and data-source identification checklist from scratch
Compare collection strategies and justify when each is appropriate
Draft a preservation plan that addresses scope, triggers, and scope-narrowing rationale
Estimate volumes and timelines for a hypothetical matter and document the assumptions
Your checkpoint
A written preservation and collection plan for a hypothetical matter, including volume and timeline estimates
E-Discovery Project Planning
Sequence the processing, review, and production workstreams and identify dependencies between them
Define quality-control checkpoints for each workstream and describe what each checkpoint tests
Build a review protocol outline covering responsiveness, privilege, and issue tagging
Draft production specifications that address format, metadata, and confidentiality designations
Your checkpoint
A review protocol and production specifications package for the hypothetical matter
E-Discovery Project Planning & Ethics in E-Discovery
Assemble the full project plan from weeks 1-3 into a single coherent document
Identify the ethical duties that attach at each planning stage (competence, supervision, confidentiality)
Draft a budget and resource plan and flag the ethical risks of under-scoping
Self-test on Domain 1 with timed practice and log every missed concept
Your checkpoint
A complete project plan plus an error log categorizing Domain 1 misses by cause
International Discovery
Map the international discovery domain into sub-areas: data protection regimes, cross-border collection, blocking statutes, and cooperation mechanisms
Outline the GDPR and a second major data protection regime in terms of lawful basis, transfer restrictions, and data subject rights
Identify the principal cross-border transfer mechanisms and when each applies
Describe the Hague Convention and other cooperation channels and their practical limits
Your checkpoint
A comparison table of at least three data protection regimes across lawful basis, transfer rules, and discovery implications
International Discovery
Analyze conflicts between foreign data protection law and U.S. discovery obligations and articulate the balancing factors courts weigh
Draft a strategy memo for collecting data from a foreign jurisdiction without violating local law
Identify blocking statutes and describe how they affect preservation and collection decisions
Plan how to document proportionality and good-faith efforts for cross-border disputes
Your checkpoint
A cross-border collection strategy memo for a hypothetical multi-jurisdiction matter
Ethics in E-Discovery
Catalog the core ethical duties in e-discovery and cite the rule or principle behind each
Analyze competence and technology-supervision obligations as applied to review and analytics tools
Evaluate confidentiality and privilege-protection risks across the discovery lifecycle
Work through sanction scenarios and identify the conduct that triggered each outcome
Your checkpoint
An ethics issue-spotting matrix mapping duties to lifecycle stages, with a worked sanction scenario
E-Discovery Project Planning & International Discovery & Ethics in E-Discovery
Re-test every logged weak concept from weeks 1-7 and confirm or re-flag each
Complete timed mixed-domain practice and analyze misses by domain and by error type
Synthesize a one-page cross-domain decision framework linking planning, international, and ethics issues
Finalize a pre-exam review sheet of the highest-risk concepts across all three domains
Your checkpoint
A one-page cross-domain decision framework plus a ranked high-risk concept review sheet
Milestones
Week 2: Can produce a preservation and collection plan with justified scope decisions without notes
Week 4: Complete project plan assembled; Domain 1 practice score logged with error categories
Week 6: Can explain at least three data protection regimes and the conflict-balancing factors from memory
Week 7: Ethics matrix complete and at least one sanction scenario analyzed end to end
Week 8: All logged weak concepts re-tested; mixed-domain timed practice shows improvement over week 4 baseline