The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)
The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) is a project dedicated to standardizing the eDiscovery process. eDiscovery, an abbreviation for electronic discovery, refers to the search and retrieval of electronic records to fulfill legal or regulatory requests. As organizations store more and more data in their email systems and through other electronic means, it is increasingly important for eDiscovery to be a standardized and effortless process.
EDRM Overview
The Electronic Discovery Reference Model contains six stages:
- Information Management
- Identification
- Preservation & Collection
- Processing, Review, & Analysis
- Production
- Presentation
How M+Archive Conforms to the Industry-Standard Electronic Discovery Model
M+Archive is a policy-based email archiving and eDiscovery solution that facilitates each step of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, making eDiscovery a worry of the past. With M+Archive, you can respond to eDiscovery requests quickly and cost-effectively and significantly reduce your risk and liability. The M+Archive solution helps organizations proactively gather, restore, search, organize, and deliver email and other records for litigation discovery and regulatory investigations. M+Archive’s high performance email archiving capabilities quickly archive and index selected electronic records that are easily transferred to a choice of media for storage. With M+Archive’s powerful search tools, archived email and other electronic records can be located and accessed instantly by internal eDiscovery auditors or legal staff. Enhanced searching capabilities allow for simultaneous searching across multiple messages, calendar items, notes, and tasks for easy discovery and retrieval.
M+Archive offers both web-based and stand-alone eDiscovery viewers that include advanced features to facilitate your search and increase the accuracy of your search results with spelling correction, phonetic (sounds-like) search, and approximate matching. M+Archive is also a member of the EDRM XML Project which is dedicated to standardizing the eDiscovery process by providing an accepted XML schema to facilitate the movement of electronically stored information. Since its inception, M+Archive has employed the XML approach to storing data.
M+Archive and Information Management
The information management stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model refers to the steps an organization should take to plan a response to eDiscovery requests; for instance, the creation and enforcement of policies is an effective method of preparing for eDiscovery. It is no longer optional for organizations to retain electronic records: it is business critical in ensuring legal and regulatory compliance.
M+Archive enables organizations to implement corporate-wide email retention, storage, and compliance management rules by creating pre-defined archiving and storage tasks called policies. M+Archive supports an unlimited number of policies that enable administrators to set unique email retention criteria for specific groups of users. This policy-based approach to record retention promotes a cohesive information management strategy.
M+Archive and Identification
The identification stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model is the process of determining the location of the stored data that the organization may be required to produce for an eDiscovery request. During the identification stage, an organization should also determine how much data exists related to the eDiscovery request.
M+Archive makes identification easy by archiving all data to a central repository. Advanced search features allow searching by keyword or other criteria, and auditing capabilities allow administrators to flag items, write comments, and more. With sub-second search results, identifying data is an easy task when archiving with M+Archive.
M+Archive and Preservation & Collection
The preservation stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model refers to one of the most delicate factors of eDiscovery: ensuring that electronic records are not destroyed hastily. During the collection stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, data is gathered from all the locations where it has been stored.
M+Archive prevents early deletion of archived content by allowing a retention flag to be applied to archived data. The retention flag uses standard file system “Last Modified Date” attributes to specify when a file should be deleted. This technology ensures that the file is not deleted before the specified timeframe has expired, thereby complying with the preservation mandate of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model. Just as M+Archive makes it easy to identify the location and volume of relevant data, collecting data is no problem for M+Archive. By storing all data in a central repository and offering advanced search and audit features, M+Archive simplifies the collection task.
M+Archive and Processing, Review, & Analysis
The processing stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model involves reducing the amount of electronic records (for instance, in the case of duplicate records) and transferring the data to its most usable format. The review stage involves looking through the amassed data to determine which records are relevant to the eDiscovery request and which records can be excluded based on privilege, date, or other criteria. The analysis stage provides further organization and classification of the data, allowing certain themes, facts, vocabulary, and other patterns to emerge; these patterns can be helpful in building a legal case.
M+Archive stores data in platform-independent XML format. This means that when an organization is ready to process its archived data, it is not necessary to convert the data into another format, saving the IT department time and money. However, it is also possible to export from M+Archive into PST format, the preferred format of many law firms. M+Archive offers single instance storage, a technology that allows for a single copy of identical attachments to be saved, further increasing the efficiency of the processing stage. In addition, with M+Archive you can reduce the overall data you have collected by setting aside files that are duplicates using advanced search and audit features.
M+Archive and Production
The production stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model refers to the act of delivering the necessary electronic records to the appropriate parties. This stage might involve transferring the data to an alternate presentation system than the original storage system.
M+Archive provides an easy delivery method by allowing an organization to export all of its archived data, or a subset of its archived data, to a location the organization chooses. The exported data remains self contained and fully searchable, and the single instance storage feature is preserved. M+Archive also offers both web-based and stand-alone eDiscovery viewers to allow lawyers or other involved parties to view and search through the exported data.
M+Archive and Presentation
The presentation stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model is the final step of the process, when the electronic records are presented at depositions, hearings and trials.
M+Archive facilitates the delivery of electronically stored information for use in other systems (such as automated litigation support systems or web-based repositories). Data can be exported in XML or PST format, and transferred to various media sources (CD, DVD, tape, hard drive, portable storage device, paper, and others).
