In the May issue of InsideCounsel, Kayleigh Roberts and Ashley Trent wrote an excellent article titled “Keeping Up With Evolving E-Discovery.” The article referenced an array of “how-to” tactics and best practices for bringing electronic discovery in-house. However, before corporations jump into the “hows” of e-discovery, they should first focus on the ”whys”—meaning, why bring electronic discovery in-house in the first place? For many serial litigants or companies in regulated verticals, taking e-discovery in-house is a fait accompli. But for many other enterprises, a bit of soul-searching will be useful before embarking upon the insourcing journey. In the event that the “why” isn't well-defined before evaluating products and vendors, the resulting process may ultimately be a futile effort as diverging interests surface at inopportune times.

Evaluate your pain index

It's probably safe to say that the amount of electronic discovery pain (commensurate with legal and regulatory events) varies for every enterprise. Even those entities in similar verticals, with similar products, likely have differing pain profiles due to the countries where they're located, number of employees, legacy acquisitions, etc. It's surprising how many enterprises can't answer the relatively simple question about how much pain e-discovery is causing the organization.