Is it time to drop the 'e' from e-discovery?
Ok people, it’s 2017. So, here's an audacious proposition to herald in a new era; a small but potentially significant change to our industry nomenclature.
The e-discovery sector is mature. Very mature. In the early days, the notion that original evidence could be found in electronic form was novel and challenging. It required detailed explanation, different thinking and new processes. A new industry was born and a new term 'e-discovery' was created to describe it.
However fifteen years on lawyers, investigators and their clients now well understand that the vast majority of original evidence is electronic and that paper documents are the exception rather than the rule.
Management of data is a standard, accepted part of the discovery process. Electronic aspects are now so pervasive and inherently obvious that the ‘e’ has become superfluous don't you think? So, isn't it time we dropped the ‘e’ from e-discovery?
Maybe we need to coin a new term ‘p-discovery’ to refer to the paper based outliers.
It may be that some substantive benefits would arise from such a change to our standard day to day parlance. Perhaps reverting to the original, foundational term ‘discovery’ will remove the mystery, the perceived complexity.. read more..
While this article is well thought out, I don't think we'll drop the "e"any time soon. Essentially, it's the brand name for this area of litigation. Beyond that, discovery still covers a wider spectrum than data collection, management and review from electronic sources. Also, many of the comments left here are from people on the service side of the equation. We deal with eDiscovery all day, every day. There are still a great number of attorneys (both in firms and corporate counsel) that are new to eDiscovery and it's still not taught as it should be to those in law school and entering the profession - so they need the distinguishing "e". While the "e" may seem silly to us now, it's still needed.
Lawyer; Financial Services Regulation and Compliance
8 年Implied nowadays isn't it?
Advisor to Judges & Lawyers for more than 4 decades
8 年Long overdue - at least a decade.
CEO and Founder at Merlin Search Technologies
8 年My take in 2014: https://catalystsecure.com/blog/2014/01/my-prediction-for-2014-e-discovery-is-dead-long-live-discovery/