E-discovery work and blockchain typically sit at odds with one another. While blockchain derives its security from total transparency, preserving data across a permanent distributed ledger, e-discovery aims to preserve security through confidentiality, cordoning off data to only those authorized to view it.

A new partnership from e-discovery group iCONECT and digital encryption group Leonovus is hoping to bridge the disconnect between the two technologies to bolster security within e-discovery. The two companies executed a letter of intent this week to partner in developing new blockchain-based tools for use in iCONECT's e-discovery platforms.

iCONECT CEO Ian Campbell said the two companies had been in conversation about potential partnerships from quite some time. There were a few ideas the Leonovus folks put forth that Campbell found exciting.

Leonovus proposed that, rather than storing documents directly, iCONECT could encrypt data by scrambling the data housed and storing it in “digital nuggets” within a blockchain infrastructure, allowing e-discovery platform iCONECT-XERA to reconstruct files when users need to access them. “You can reconstitute the file without having all of the endpoints available and live at any one time,” Campbell explained.

This structure can add an extra layer of protection against hackers by preventing direct access to sensitive or confidential material. “On the back end, you're just seeing scrambled eggs,” Campbell noted.

Using this option can also open up cost saving opportunities for clients. “You can save money by deploying the secure digital nuggets in your cheapest data center,” Campbell said.

For Leonovus, iCONECT represents a key access to the legal market. Leonovus CEO and chairman Michael Gaffney noted in a statement that iCONECT's market penetration and existing platforms “have given Leonovus a unique market insight for our product team.”

“The real goal is to expand the sales of both companies,” Gaffney said.

Campbell said he expects the digital nugget infrastructure will be available to users at some point over the summer, but he expects most of the effort in development will be directed toward quality control.

“We really wanted to make this seamless to the end users. From their perspective, it's just the same experience for them. The end user doesn't need to know that the administrator has put in all these safeguards in the back end, at the same time the administrator wants to make sure that the experience being presented to users is something they can be confident in,” he said.

The two companies are working on other potential applications of blockchain within e-discovery. “I think in the future were also going to see it apply to the logging of chain of custody around all the things that have to happen with that confidential material,” Campbell said, a move that can help inside counsel and other litigation managers keep strict track of who has accessed what data.