eDiscovery Survey: In-House Teams Identify Searching Large Data Volumes as Biggest Obstacle to Finding ESI

Global News

19
Aug
2015

Editor

Exterro Inc., the preferred provider of e-discovery and information governance software specifically designed for Global 2000 organizations, today released the findings of its “The Biggest Obstacles in Locating Responsive Data" survey. Findings from the new survey indicate searching through vast amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) to find responsive data is the number one challenge for both IT and Legal teams at global enterprises.

Identifying and accessing data sources for collection was reported to be the biggest obstacle by the second most number of respondents. The survey reflects 208 responses received from in-house attorneys, IT, paralegals and litigation support professionals in July 2015. 

The Biggest Obstacles in Locating Responsive Data Results

The respondents in the new survey represent a wide variety of industries, including financial services, energy, oil and gas, technology, healthcare, pharmaceutical and manufacturing. The overall survey results rank the biggest obstacles for finding responsive ESI as follows: 

1. Searching through large amounts of data (39%)
2. Identifying / accessing data sources for collection (35%)
3. Developing search criteria for determining document relevancy (15%)
4. Using in-house e-discovery search / collection software effectively (8%)
5. Working with third-party collection / processing providers (3%)

“As we identified in a previous survey conducted this spring, finding relevant ESI for e-discovery remains the number one challenge for in-house legal teams," said Bill Piwonka, chief marketing officer at Exterro. “Our intent with this second survey was to dig a bit deeper and identify which aspects of the e-discovery identification process are the most challenging for the different stakeholders involved in the process as well as to educate them on solutions available to address these challenges."

Comments from the Survey Respondents

Specific responses as to why ESI is the biggest obstacle in identifying relevant ESI for e-discovery is reflected as follows: 

• Attorney: “My organization still has a large amount of data in hard copy form that is located in a number of offices throughout our service territory. There is a high risk of us not finding responsive documents simply b/c we don't know they exist.”
• IT: “We have a huge volume of unstructured data. Identifying and collecting from this data is daunting.  The sheer volume also is a barrier to proper governance and retention.”
• Paralegal: “Data in our company is everywhere. So finding the right sources is a challenge and sometimes it is difficult to get the data out of the sources they reside in.”

Complimentary copies of Exterro’s newest survey, “The Biggest Obstacles in Locating Responsive Data,” can be downloaded on Exterro’s website.