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Without a doubt, 2015 was a banner year for the legal technology world. From some of the biggest data breaches and e-discovery cases to what's coming in the New Year, Legaltech News provides you with a look forward and back on some of the biggest issues trending in the space.
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How sophisticated is the e-discovery process at your organization? The Electronic Discovery Reference Model has created a self-evaluation to help you find out.
The test is designed to help law firms, corporate legal departments and government entities take stock of their e-discovery processes to improve them, said a Sept. 24 announcement.
The E-Discovery Maturity Self-Assessment Test, dubbed eMSAT-1, is an Excel spreadsheet with 25 questions, or worksheets, divided into seven categories. The categories include:
Data identification, preservation and collection.
Data processing and hosting.
Data review and analysis.
Data production.
The self-assessment questions include: How would you describe your handling of information governance? How would you describe your ability to identify potentially responsive data? How would you describe your processes for managing data once a matter has concluded?
The result in each category is one of five outcomes:
1. No process, reactive. 2. Fragmented process. 3. Standard process, not enforced. 4. Standard process, enforced; and 5. Actively managed process, proactive.
When the test is complete, a summary of results appears at the top of the spreadsheet for each category, above the results for individual categories and their related questions. Click image to enlarge.
Questions and summary results are accompanied by blue and green visualizations that chart answers from "no process" to "actively managed process."
George Socha of Socha Consulting. “Instead, each organization will have to decide based on the factors in eMSAT-1 whether it has achieved the level of maturity appropriate to it.” Socha founded EDRM in 2005 with Tom Gelbmann, principal of Roseville, Minn.-based consultancy Gelbmann & Associates.
“The more people an organization involves in its self-assessment, the more meaningful the results will be,” Socha said.
A four-person EDRM team collaborated for about seven months to develop the eMSAT-1 questions. The team consisted of: Atlanta-area based Evan Benjamin, an e-discovery consultant at Protiviti Inc., a subsidiary of staffing company Robert Half; Tiana Van Dyk, manager of e-discovery and litigation support at Calgary-based Burnet Duckworth & Palmer; andBrett Livingood, associate professor at Bryan University in Tempe, Ariz., and an e-discovery consultant at Robert Half Legal. Matthew Knouff, e-discovery counsel at New York City-based e-discovery company Complete Discovery Source, headed the team.
Saint Paul, Minn.-based EDRM creates frameworks, standards and resources related to e-discovery and information governance.
