Technology and E-Discovery
Technology and E-Discovery
This domain tests the use of technology in practice and the management of electronic evidence from preservation to production, including data protection and proportionality.
E-discovery workflow
- Identification and preservation: issue a litigation hold as soon as litigation is reasonably anticipated. Suspend auto-deletion and preserve metadata, custodial devices, email, cloud accounts and backups.
- Collection: use forensically sound methods, maintain chain of custody and record hashes.
- Processing and review: de-duplicate, filter by date, custodian and keywords, then review for relevance and privilege. Technology-assisted review (TAR) may be used where transparent and validated.
- Production: provide agreed formats, load files and metadata; avoid inadvertent disclosure of privileged material and have a clawback protocol.
Legal framework
Irish discovery is governed by the Rules of the Superior Courts and case management, especially in the Commercial Court. Requests must be relevant and proportionate. GDPR applies to personal data in the review; processing must have a lawful basis and appropriate security.
Practice technology
Case management systems, e-filing, electronic signatures under the Electronic Commerce Act 2000, secure client portals and AI tools raise confidentiality, bias and verification issues.
Worked example
A company anticipates a breach-of-contract claim and deletes old emails under its retention policy. Once litigation is contemplated, the deletion destroys discoverable material; the court may draw inferences or award costs against the company.
Traps
Do not rely only on keyword search for large data sets. Do not produce documents without privilege review. The cloud provider security does not transfer the practice GDPR obligations.