Active Projects

As more and more consumers around the globe are demanding from companies that their personally identifiable information be protected or deleted, it is imperative that this data can be reliably and easily identified and redacted when producing documents in litigation matters when such data is present.  In addition to the GDPR and CCPA laws that are currently in place, there are at least 20 additional states that are considering similar legislation.

Whether for e-discovery, data security, or information governance purposes, organizations have been conducting data mapping exercises for many years. This work has resulted in increased visibility and transparency into where data exists within the organization and what that data includes.  This will greatly aid companies as they strive to become compliant with the various data privacy regulations.

This project will be designed to identify the “best practices” for the identification of PII in data sets which are collected for litigation matters, as well as developing workflows to ensure that documents which are produced have been redacted of the required sensitive data.

Project is championed by Caroline Sweeney, Director, Knowledge Management and Innovation at Dorsey & Whitney LLP and Bernie Hillengas, Esq., adjunct professor at the University, Albany School of Business.

The project’s goal is to increase the adoption of analytics and machine learning in eDiscovery and in the legal field generally.  There are four active subgroups meeting on aspects of analytics and machine learning, with the overall project stewarded by Project Trustees Jan Scholtes and George Socha, with gratitude to Lilith Bat-Leah for her contribution.

Visit the project page here.

Sub-Projects:

• Analytics and Machine Learning Glossary
• Analytics and Machine Learning Validation
• AI Ethics & Bias
• Demythigator

Artificial Intelligence is a wide ranging and pervasive methodology reaching all areas of life.  The project concluded its exploration of its use in litigation and how it will continue to develop.  The project explored and developed opportunities to educate lawyers and judges on the role of AI in litigation.  The AI project, led by Trustee Kelly Atherton, senior manager of cyber incident response at Norton Rose Fulbright, has published their paper in Wiki format here.

Download the complete paper in PDF format here.

This project is designed to document community standards around data mapping in response to the Senior Executive Accountability Regime (SEAR) in Ireland.  The project is championed by A&L Goodbody’s Rachel McAdams, Legal Technology and eDiscovery Senior Manager and Eoghan Kenney, Data Projects Manager. Last year, the EDRM Data Mapping project conducted a survey to learn more about the EDRM community’s experiences and needs with regards to data mapping. Data mapping can be a wide-ranging subject, with stakeholders from IT to Records, Legal and many other departments within an organization. The goal of the survey was to establish how often our community engages with data mapping, and where the gaps in available resources might be.  Survey results are posted here.

The goal of the project, now elevated to an initiative, is to create a new, generic dataset that includes as many of the modern data types (Slack, Snapchat, Facebook, website data, etc.) as possible in addition to traditional email for use within eDiscovery and Information Governance. The new data sets will be made available to the general public for use in research, testing, demonstrations, software development and other related use cases.

We welcome and look forward to the community’s help in data type identification and gathering sources of data we can use in this project.  Please contact us at info@edrm.net with Data Sets in the subject line to get connected.  The project champions are Mark Michels, lecturer in law, Santa Clara University School of Law and Cash Butler, CEO and founder of ClariLegal.

During discovery, disclosure or an investigation, it is often useful to identify duplicate emails in data exchanged between parties, allowing legal teams to rapidly triage emails already reviewed.

While current approaches effectively identify email duplicates within native datasets, they do not enable duplicate identification across emails processed by different tools or produced in different formats. Currently no means of cross platform email duplicate identification exists.

The goal of the EDRM Duplicate Identification project is to develop a specification that will enable cross platform email duplicate identification in order to improve efficiencies.

This project is being championed by Beth Patterson, Director, ESPconnect

Visit the project page here.

eDiscovery practices and procedures in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region vary greatly depending on the origins of a given jurisdiction’s legal system.  Countries with common law systems, such as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, have well-established eDiscovery practices and procedures in their respective court rules.  In jurisdictions based on civil law or hybrid legal systems orders and/or directions for discovery are less common.  However, discovery processes in the APAC region are commonly used in international arbitrations, for document production pursuant to notices or subpoenas to produce documents in foreign regulatory investigations, and for internal investigations.

Visit the project page here.

Recognizing that the EDRM model has not had a refresh in some time, the project focuses on updating the underlying documentation of the EDRM model to reflect changes in technology, process, and the law. Project Trustee is Tara Emory, Director of Consulting at Driven.

Visit the project page here.

Sub-Projects:

• Identification
• Preservation
• Collection
• Review
• Analytics
• Production
• Presentation

The project team is working toward developing a code of conduct for cross-border discovery under the EU General Data Protection Regulation.  EDRM formed the team in August 2017 to examine GDPR and develop guidance for becoming GDPR compliant, particularly with an eye toward the regulation’s impact on cross-border discovery. Initially focused on data transfers from Ireland to the U.S., the guidance is aimed at mitigating some of the risk that international litigation teams and e-discovery practitioners face when balancing U.S. discovery obligations against European data privacy laws. Project Trustees are Dave Cohen, Partner at Reed Smith and Yelizaveta Kotova, Reed Smith.

The Information Governance Reference Model was initially created to frame the discussion of information management, in the same way the Electronic Discovery Reference Model functions for e-discovery.  The project focuses on updating the IGRM model as well as recognizing the interconnection between this project and the Maturity Assessment project.  Maturity is measured in part by reviewing the level of collaboration among key stakeholders which is at the very core of excellent information management. Project Trustees Eric Mandel, Consultant at Driven and Lynn Molfetta, Information Governance Specialist for MC Bernstein Data, building on the work of Eric Sedwick.

A privilege log is a record of the responsive or relevant documents that are being withheld from production on a claim that they contain attorney-client communications or work-product.  The purpose of the project is developing best practices that most efficiently accomplish the task, including consideration of possible rule amendments.  The project has published Version 2.0 of the EDRM Privilege Log Protocol.

Download the protocol by visiting the project page here.

This project was created to help improve and promote equal access to justice and is now an EDRM initiative. EDRM’s Pro Bono Initiative participants will create a workflow for matching organizations and individuals in need of e-discovery capabilities for pro bono matters, with organizations and individuals wanting to make such capabilities available. The Initiative is actively seeking a new Trustee and contributors.

This project was launched to update the processing stage of the EDRM.  Organized in concert with the Merlin Foundation, this EDRM project will build processing specifications such as de-NISTing, de-duping and other functions. Project Trustees include John Tredennick, CEO of Merlin Digital Magic and Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, PC.

Visit the project page here.

There are several state and federal courts around the country that have implemented a discovery facilitative mediation program over the last 5 or 6 years. This project involves identifying all such programs and determining how successful they have been. By comparing and evaluating such programs, we learned that there are certain factors/components that distinguish a highly successful program from a less successful program.

Download the EDRM Special Masters and Discovery Mediation Bench Book Final 2022 Version and give feedback to be incorporated into the 2023 version from the project page.

Jay Yelton, Partner at Warner, Norcross + Judd is the Project Trustee.

Visit the project page here.

The State Rules Project, with Suzanne Clark and Janice Yates as Project Trustees, seeks to gather, organize and publish a cross reference of State eDiscovery Rules with the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The following states are covered by these EDRM leaders, and the project team welcomes those from other states to participate:

Visit the project page here.

A frequent eDiscovery pain point is the absence of education regarding metadata that is available for text message data that can be found on phones. The project will tackle educating legal, litigation technology and corporate investigative professionals on the metadata that is available for text message data. Monica Harris, Product Business Manager, Cellebrite Enterprise Solutions, is the Project Trustee.

The project is seeking new contributors. Learn more by visiting the project page here.