Processing is a very important process in e-discovery—it's the key to getting data into the database where attorneys can begin building their case. It's critical to account for every piece of data and experienced processing professionals quickly learn that there are some key considerations when ingesting data—but those considerations aren't always straightforward.

The EDRM Processing Standards Guide was written to educate newcomers to the field so they don't have to learn through mistakes and provide veterans a handy resource when a new or unusual project comes their way. The guide was drafted by the Electronic Discovery Reference Model's (EDRM) processing group, of which I am a member.

Our first step when writing this guide was to identify the most common hurdles case teams deal with for most processing jobs. It didn't take long—during our discussion, we quickly found three common concerns were de-duplication, error handling and dealing with time zones. But what does that mean to you, and how can a single industry-wide guide support your day-to-day responsibilities? Instead of rewriting the guide here, let's take a deeper dive into these data decisions—with a quick look at how the new guide can help you address each scenario.