Use Predictive Coding As an Information Governance Tool

Many e-discovery problems arise because of information governance problems within the organization. In other words, companies are not proactively managing the growing data sets that are being created and archived within the company. This large volume of data is what plaintiffs’ attorneys often want to target during litigation. Damaging and overbroad discovery requests sometimes force defense attorneys to cull through unstructured and unclassified data in an effort to locate information that is relevant to the litigation. Having a strong information governance policy can mitigate some of the risks and liabilities that can arise out of the e-discovery portion of a case.

Information governance is the framework that encourages desirable behavior in the creation, storage, utilization, categorization, disposition and destruction of information. Problems with too much information arise out of the fact that a company may not have developed and applied policies to its ever growing data sets. Organizational inertia may lead to the conclusion that it is easier to simply keep everything than to properly categorize, store and destroy information. With the falling costs associated with storing ever larger data sets, holding onto everything may seem to be the right course of action. When a lawsuit or regulatory request strikes, this laissez-faire approach creates significant problems for a company. Holding onto everything means more documents to search, more fodder for plaintiffs’ counsel, increased discovery disputes, and increased costs and attorneys’ fees.