Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers do-it-yourself ediscovery collection software at a price point far below the industry average(see article below). In addition, you'll find links to the previous 11 TL NewsWire features, including our coverage of cloud practice management software for law firms that crave the billing and automation features of legacy software, a federal tax law research tool that facilitates point-in-time analysis and redlines showing changes, and much more. Don't miss the next issue.
Most litigators work in firms with fewer than five lawyers and handle disputes with a relatively small number of witnesses. However, most ediscovery software for collecting potential evidence — electronically stored information (ESI) — from custodian computers is cost prohibitive.
Actevis Collection Wizard … in One Sentence
Launched recently, Actevis Collection Wizard is forensically defensible, do-it-yourself ediscovery collection software at a low price point.
The Killer Feature
Before starting his demo, Actevis Systems' Chief Software Architect Martin Reich tells me about what I'll call the "ediscovery collection gap." Hiring a consultant to run collection software such as industry giant EnCase costs about $2,000 per custodian.
Accordingly, many litigators omit custodians to save money. Or they may forego using such software altogether, and instead instruct custodians to self-collect from their computers using drag and drop to an external drive. These litigators run the risk of being called as a witness if opposing counsel challenges the chain of custody or completeness of the collection. Mistakes can result in sanctions.
Actevis Collection Wizard offers forensically-sound do-it-yourself collection for $100 per custodian computer. "Actevis Collection Wizard already complies with proposed FRE 902(14) on data collection audit trails expected to become final this year," says Reich. "As a lawyer, you shouldn't collect evidence in a haphazard manner," adds co-founder David Golden. "You don't want your evidence and your competency in ediscovery challenged by opposing counsel."
Other Notable Features
Actevis Collection Wizard runs on Windows PCs. Once downloaded, it walks you through three steps. First, you select the target drive or folder (the C drive is the default). Second, you select the output format such as the native files in the folder structure on the custodian machine or a small set of ZIP files. Third, you select where to save the copy. When configuring the settings, you can exclude file types such as images, restrict the collection to a specific date range, etc.
Email often trips up collection projects. For example, web-based ediscovery tools cannot collect email when Outlook is running according to Reich. Also, many custodians don't know how to export PST files from Outlook. Actevis Collection Wizard collects email from Outlook regardless of its state and without the need to create a PST file. The Recycle Bin likewise can pose collection challenges but not for Actevis Collection Wizard.
To ensure that each copy is identical to its original counterpart and that no tampering has occurred, Actevis Collection Wizard uses the latest file verification protocols — known as "hashing." A group of automatically generated reports provides a defensible audit trail if challenged. For example, the reports list all your settings and all collected files and their corresponding hashes. An expert can use these reports to authenticate the files you produce to opposing counsel. You can have the Collection Summary report emailed to you when the collection process concludes.
What Else Should You Know?
You can run Actevis Collection Wizard an unlimited number of times on a custodian PC for 90 days. This enables you to export in native file format for early case assessment, and then again later for importing into your ediscovery review software. Learn more about Actevis Collection Wizard.
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