Proactively Prepare for Litigation

The need for electronic records management. The explosive growth of electronic communications as business records has left enterprises facing parallel legal and technological burdens. Every day, corporate networks, email servers, file shares, backup tapes, and mobile devices are flooded with email messages, attachments and instant messages. Businesses must properly manage this torrent of information in order to meet the strict evidentiary demands arising from the electronic discovery of documents in legal proceedings (eDiscovery).

Ensure your data is ready for legal proceedings. When companies are targeted in lawsuits or choose to initiate litigation, they require immediate access to historical electronic information, as email can be legally admissible as evidence in a lawsuit. Additionally, courts enforce document demands to promptly produce electronic records.

For companies without an eDiscovery solution in place, the costs associated with retrieving 'deleted' data or information stored on unsophisticated backup systems can be enormous. Extensive data deletion is not a solution, as not being able to produce records at all can often result in penalties and biases in court. For example, the case of Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, showed that not being able to produce relevant emails in a case may necessitate that a jury be required to draw an 'adverse inference' as to the content of the missing data. The value of having an effective eDiscovery system in place is clear.

Global Relay Archive is a message archiving system designed for eDiscovery. It provides efficient online tools for collaboration, case management and responses to legal data requests. With Global Relay Archive, your firm's data is litigation-ready.

Electronically Stored Information is the Best Evidence

What is ESI? Electronically Stored Information (ESI) is discoverable and can be deemed a 'record' that can be used in court. Electronic discovery, or eDiscovery, is the term used to describe legal discovery that uses ESI.

The increasing importance of eDiscovery. In recent years, eDiscovery has received considerable attention in the courts. The U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) have now formally entrenched eDiscovery as a routine aspect of litigation. Parallel efforts are taking place internationally. What does this mean for your business? It is essential to put policies and systems in place so that relevant records can be produced in a timely and complete manner.

The challenges of eDiscovery. When choosing a solution to manage your business records, it is essential to consider the challenges of meeting eDiscovery demands. These include:

1. Scalability. Businesses must manage the volume of data associated with electronic communications.
2. Retention. Businesses must retain communications that are, or may be, relevant to a legal proceeding for as long as necessary.
3. Filtering. Data must be searchable in order to cull irrelevant information and reduce the volume of information provided to legal staff for review.
4. Production. The communications must be able to be produced in a timely manner in a form that meets the evidentiary requirements of the courts.

Message archiving designed for eDiscovery. Global Relay's software-as-a-service solutions fully meet these challenges. They provide a scalable, cost-effective platform - enabling your organization to be prepared in the event of litigation. Global Relay Archive allows firms to efficiently extract relevant communications for use during eDiscovery.

The eDiscovery features of Global Relay Archive include:

• A unified, searchable platform for archiving your business' electronic communications. Historical messages can be located in seconds
• The ability to enable "online eDiscovery," where the opposing party's counsel is granted access to a controlled subset of the archive for reviewing/searching documents without having to export, process, or print the data
• Data is held on 'write once, read many' hard drives with full audit records to ensure that data meets 'best evidence' standards
• Data can be exported from the Archive in multiple formats and Global Relay can, upon request, deliver the records directly to an opposing party
• Records within the Archive may be tagged as 'Attorney-Client Privileged' in order to restrict access
• 'Legal holds' may be enforced to ensure that selected data is not deleted prior to litigation

As with all Global Relay offerings, Global Relay Archive is backed by our 24/7/367 'follow the sun' support, including in-house attorneys and a dedicated eDiscovery team to assist your business in the event of litigation. Read more about how Global Relay's dedicated Audit and eDiscovery team can assist your firm during audits and legal proceedings.