How to Create an E-Discovery Data Map

According to the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, organizations must have a knowledge of their data storage centers, what lies in these storage centers and what the retention policies are that guide these storage centers. In order to comply with this part of the rules, companies have been advised to construct data maps of the IT infrastructure. However, unlike the typical IT data map, these must be more granular in order to provide a use for legal departments for e-discovery. This article will teach you how to construct a data map of your company's electronically stored information.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• IT personnel
• Legal personnel
• Records management personnel
• Copies of data retention policies
• Spreadsheet or database software

Creating a Data Map for E-Discovery

1. Call a meeting between your IT personnel, legal personnel and records management personnel.

2. Review the current IT data map. This data map will likely list all the data repositories within the company, but not much else.

3. Have the legal team share their obligations under the Federal Rules with the IT and records management staff.

4. Ensure the records management team brings copies of the data retention policies into the meeting. Make sure these policies are up-to-date.

5. Designate a member of IT to lead the data map project from the IT side. This person will provide the legal and records management staff with the most up-to-date information regarding where certain data is stored, including back up tapes, e-mail repositories and applications.

6. Instruct legal and records management personnel to identify and interview the information stewards and custodians in charge of the various repositories. These interviews should shed light on what kind of information is stored within each repository as well as how to access each repository.

7. Record all of your findings from these interviews and create a master spreadsheet or database that combines this information with the pre-existing information contained within IT's current data map.

8. Test the data map either on a real piece of litigation or a test litigation. This will allow you to judge whether the data map you have created is applicable to a real-world e-discovery request.

9. Designate a member of the legal team and the records management team to continue to interface with the designated IT personnel to ensure the data map stays current. If a new storage unit is added or new litigation arises, all members across these teams must be informed in order to alter the data map accordingly.

Tips & Warnings

• There is some software that can be deployed to assist in the data map process. Although it is expensive, it can help the legal staff get an idea of what kind of data lies where without as much legwork.

• Consider hiring an outside consultant to assist in the data mapping process. This can ensure that you create a usable data map without taking away from crucial human resources, such as legal, records management and IT staff.

• Failure to update the data map could result in an inability to find and retrieve electronically stored information that is responsive to an e-discovery request.

• Just relying on your current IT data map is not enough. For legal to make use of it, it must depict the content of information repositories on a granular level.