Evidence Collection Services Managing and organizing the collection of disparate forms of electronic evidence from various sources at multiple locations can be challenging and risky. Perhaps even more challenging is ensuring your organization's processes for collection are fully defensible in court. Done properly, evidence collection can serve as the foundation for ensuring fast, accurate and cost-effective response to e-discovery requests.
Fios offers strategic evidence collection services that are optimized for the discovery process.
Fios is experienced at identifying and collecting large quantities of electronically stored information (ESI) for legal proceedings, focusing on active, forensic and archival forms of media. In addition to their thorough understanding of the law, our experts possess the business and technical acumen to help you develop the best course of action for each matter. Fios knows how to maintain and document a complete chain of custody for collected data and ensure accurate and authenticated information. We can help you understand the universe of data and determine exactly what needs to be collected, along with the most cost-effective approach.
Defensible Collection Strategies The IT staff at your organization may have the technical skills required to collect data, but do they possess the resources, tools and procedures to manage evidence collection in a manner that is defensible in court? Fios works with you and your IT staff to develop collaborative collection plans that cover a wide range of disparate sources. Fios helps you understand the types of data that should be collected for particular matters, as well as the size, location and accessibility of the potentially responsive ESI. As a result, your legal team can make informed decisions when preparing for litigation. We also ensure that all collection methods incorporate requirements for downstream evidence processing and review.
Fios offers the most flexible collection options to meet the unique needs of each of our clients, including:
Onsite collections managed by evidentiary experts from Fios
Forensic collections
Self-empowered collection where Fios trains and equips your IT staff
Benefits of Fios' Evidence Collection Services Our dedicated forensics and collections experts help determine the best collection strategy up-front and are readily accessible to you and your team throughout the project. As part of our comprehensive services, we deliver:
A unified, scalable and secure database of original file content and metadata
The ability to collect a wide range of common and arcane file types from any number of disparate sources
Proven tools and techniques that efficiently enable collection of only what is necessary
Defensible and auditable processes that stand up in court
Absolute security and confidentiality for your evidence
Additional resources
Relevant Resources
A high-profile brokerage was caught shifting hundreds of millions in debt off the books. A consortium of banks was sued for securities fraud. The law firm defending the banks needed a service provider with experience in complex, high-stakes cases and a robust review platform that could accommodate a geographically dispersed team of reviewers.
A major telecommunications company proposes to acquire one of its rivals, prompting a government antitrust review. During the investigation, the government issued a second request for production, and the company’s outside counsel – accustomed to a paper-based review process – suddenly faced a 30-day time frame to sort through 270 gigabytes of data and prepare it for review. With stiff daily fines for missing the deadline, paper review was no longer a viable option.
An international, for-profit hospital operator, facing a Federal, antitrust lawsuit, had 60 days to prepare for its scheduling conference. This required identifying, preserving and analyzing more than two terabytes of electronic evidence from 80 custodians, with data stored on 100 personal computers, data shares and servers in seven different regional data centers.
ED101 - e-Discovery Fundamentals
A global pharmaceutical company, in the midst of ongoing, class action litigation in both Federal Court and multiple state jurisdictions, was forced to respond to an e-discovery request in one matter involving 1,500 custodians in a four-month timeframe. More than 12 terabytes of electronically stored information (ESI) needed to be collected and reviewed by both the corporation and the supporting law firms.
Electronic discovery is filled with pitfalls and mistakes that can be avoided with proper planning and preparation. One area that can have the greatest impact on the defensibility and the cost of e-discovery is evidence collection.
In litigation, there is often no better smoking gun than the corporate email. Emails tend to be informal and much less circumspect than other corporate documents, so they are the perfect target once a lawsuit is filed or an investigation is initiated. This webcast takes a look at what legal professionals need to understand about email during e-discovery.
This webcast will focus on how applying collaborative e-discovery practices can help litigation teams meet discovery obligations in a defensible and cost-effective manner. Topics of discussion will revolve around: Early case assessment as a means for identifying organizational and case needs; Evidence collection options available for preserving potentially relevant ESI without losing key metadata or chain of custody; Processing and culling strategies for ensuring that the right ESI is loaded and
What if only half of the evidence in an "email" file could be produced for a discovery request? And, what if you didn't know which half? That is the problem and the challenge of Lotus Notes. It cannot be treated like Microsoft Outlook, yet most legal teams and e-Discovery providers do. That is a risky situation for corporate counsel and the law firms that represent them. In this webcast, legal professionals will learn why Notes creates unique challenges for discovery and how to mitigate the risk
Advanced Electronic Discovery
There are four main electronic evidence processes in any electronic discovery project:
Restoration and Harvesting, Processing, Review, Production.
This article focuses on the restoration and harvesting process which can be broken down into three major steps:
Collection Completed -- Client has already collected data.
Collection Preparation -- Data has not yet been collected and the client may require guidance for evidence self-collection, or an outside party to harvest t
Emerging Trends
In the current economic environment, managing e-discovery has become recognized as an important part of any responsible corporate strategy to reduce costs. There is a universal need to understand the e-discovery process. In this webcast, Fios' Mary Mack interviews Ralph Losey in conjunction with the release of his newest book, Introduction to E-Discovery: New Cases, Ideas, and Techniques, published by the American Bar Association.
Nearly all evidence is now created digitally, with less than 1% printed out and produced during discovery. Lawyers must understand how to identify, preserve and collect all potentially relevant evidence to ensure compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the courts. Computer forensics plays a critical role in this process. Download this webcast, where Fios' Mary Mack interviews Craig Ball, one of the industry’s leading experts in e-discovery and computer forensics.
This webcast addresses the e-discovery risks faced by the financial industry as litigation and investigation around subprime transactions unfold, particularly around the smoking guns and large volumes of electronically stored information (ESI) that may exist somewhere in the e-universe. Those impacted will need to be prepared to answer questions around who knew what about the risk profile of the transactions, when did they know it, how were they represented, what were the expectations and what d
e-Discovery Readiness & Planning
Inexpensive storage technology, expanding networks, the explosion of data, new data formats, and stricter regulations and tighter timeframes are putting organizations at risk when they are required to respond to electronic discovery requests.
Case Law / Rules
Cross-border discovery represents a challenge for organizations required to gather relevant data in foreign jurisdictions – either from opposing parties or their own affiliated organizations. This quarterly update from The Sedona Conference® provides an overview of the vastly different notions of discovery, data privacy and protection requirements facing organizations that conduct e-discovery involving electronically stored information (ESI) based outside the U.S.
Moderator: Carsten Casper,
In September, Congress passed and the President signed Senate Bill 2450, which enacted proposed Federal Rule of Evidence (FRE) 502. This is the first amendment to the federal rules regarding privilege since FRE 501 was enacted in 1975, and it marks a significant departure from the historic deference federal courts have paid to state law with regards to privilege. FRE 502, which authorizes federal courts to enter orders protecting the privileged status of attorney-client communications inadverten
Nineteen states have now incorporated e-discovery provisions in their general civil procedure codes or have modified specialized rules for their business courts, and at least five other states have new provisions pending in 2009. Tom Allman, a prominent voice in the legal community on e-discovery rules, along with Fios' Mary Mack, provide a review of what states are doing – or not doing – about procedural rules for e-discovery.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of California's decision in Qualcomm v. Broadcom could require companies to reconsider their e-discovery policies and procedures.
e-Discovery Standards & Best Practices
Hear from leading analysts George Socha and Tom Gelbmann on the activities that took place at LegalTech New York, developments in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) projects and overall e-discovery trends to follow in 2009.
This webcast will focus on how applying collaborative e-discovery practices can help litigation teams meet discovery obligations in a defensible and cost-effective manner. Topics of discussion will revolve around: Early case assessment as a means for identifying organizational and case needs; Evidence collection options available for preserving potentially relevant ESI without losing key metadata or chain of custody; Processing and culling strategies for ensuring that the right ESI is loaded and