IS IT IMPORTANT TO FORMULATE A SEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROTOCOL FOR ESI?
RESPONSE: YES Resources: Excerpt from Best Practices Guide for ESI Pretrial Discovery – Strategy and Tactics (2008-2009), ยง 3.7, Search Methodology and Protocol: A. Overview B. Limitations C. Search Method Certification D. Suggested Search Protocol E. Requesting Party Strategy F. Producing Party Strategy G. Checklist A. Overview The search and production protocol used by the producing party to identify, preserve, collect and process ESI is important in determining whether the entire relevant data population was disclosed to the requesting party. For the producing party, the production protocol for establishing a proper collection will lessen the spoliation risk inherent in e-discovery cases and provide defensibility for the data population. The search protocol is one of the most critical steps in the production of ESI. Issues, such as which computer devices and media were searched in acquiring the data, what search terms were utilized to gather the evidence and what filtering rules wer
