Trust: It's not just for marriages and family members. It's also for working with government regulators, because without trust, an investigation will go poorly for both the government and the company at large.

Four in-house counsel gave their experiences in dealing with government regulators at the “E-Discovery Challenges in Government Investigations and Regulatory Actions” panel on Day 2 of Legaltech West Coast. The panel, sponsored by Discover Ready, featured Scott Coonan, senior director of IP, litigation & strategy, Juniper Networks; Mira Edelman, senior discovery counsel, Google; Dawson Horn, III, associate general counsel, deputy director of e-discovery, AIG; and Sylvie Stulic, manager of legal operations and litigation, Electronic Arts.

The panel identified five parts of the investigation process that were important to isolate: understanding the government's request, knowing your requestor, cooperating and sharing expertise, leveraging technology, and ending with a satisfied regulator. And although all investigations are different, there are some common threads among all investigations that can be tackled.