Copy of EDRM to TAR- Legal Discovery Acronyms Decoded
The legal discovery phase can be intimidating enough for many budding lawyers without a strange language of acronyms to contend with. Many of these terms like ERDM, TAR and OCR are essential to know if you’re using eDiscovery software or trying to maintain compliance. Below we’ve decoded some of these terms for you.
DSARs
Data Subject Access Requests
Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) are requests by individuals to see personal data that an organization holds about them. They are increasingly used as a tactical ‘pre-discovery’ tool in disputes in order to obtain personal data before formal legal disclosure begins. Software is often used by organizations to keep on top of DSARs.
EDRM
Electronic Discovery Reference Model
EDRM is a nine-stage framework that is used to guide lawyers and paralegals through the eDiscovery phase. It includes the following phases: information governance, identification, preservation, collecting, processing, review, analysis, production, presentation. It’s important to learn to ensure that handling of digital data is done carefully and compliantly.
ESI
Electronically Stored Information
Any information stored in digital form is ESI. This includes emails, chat messages, documents, spreadsheets, social media posts, audio, video, mobile data and more. This is typically the main type of evidence used in today’s legal cases. Such data needs to be handled properly during the discovery phase using ERDM guidelines.
FRCP
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern how civil litigation works in US federal courts. This includes how ESI is produced and what happens if parties fail to meet their duties. If you’re involved in a US case, FRCP could be essential to consider.
FOIA
Freedom of Information Act
FOIA gives the public the rights to request access to records from US federal agencies. Many states have their own FOIA-style laws. These requests often involve accessing large volumes of ESI. Unlike formal discovery, FOIA is a tool available to anyone at any point. It can often be used for corroborating witness testimony during the discovery phase.
OCR
Optical Character Recognition
Optical character recognition is a technology used to convert images into text. It’s useful for extracting information from PDFs, fax images, photos of documents or handwritten notes – turning them into text files that can be searched and highlighted.
PII
Personally Identifiable Information
PII is any data that can identify an individual: names, email addresses, phone numbers, ID numbers and account details. During the discovery phase, you must protect this sensitive information. This includes spotting it, restricting access and often redacting it before production of FOIA/DSAR responses. Many modern software tools can automatically detect PII and censor it.
TAR
Technology-Assisted Review
TAR – also known as predictive coding – involves the use of machine learning to identify, categorise and rank electronically stored information (ESI). It’s heavily used to slash review time. Its use has been approved by courts as a reliable way to manage massive volumes of data, but it must not be used to completely replace human review. You can find lots of information online on how to apply TAR.
