* A great example of the advancing “accessibility” of e-discovery is the work that Kroll Ontrack did in Murphy Oil USA, Inc. v. Fluor Daniel, Inc. – the case involved a contract dispute in Louisiana between two companies – electronic discovery technology was effectively used by the parties to restore, search, and de-duplicate a sample of nine users’ e-mail from backup tapes. The relatively small production resulted in about 15,000 pages of potentially responsive documents, took a couple days to complete, and cost considerably less than other proposed methods of reviewing and producing the data. According to one of the parties, e-discovery made a distinct difference in the resolution of the matter.

* A recent example of success with a relatively small amount of data was a situation we encountered with a global textile manufacturer. The company suspected two of its sales people of committing about $50,000 of fraud. Their law firm and accounting firm estimated that it would cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to review the e-mail of the suspected sales representatives. We suggested that the sales manager could review the same information for about $10,000. He came in with his four or five keywords to search through the information, but we suggested he browse through the automatically generated concept maps. I wished I had a video camera of his investigation. Within twenty minutes by scanning through the concept list, he encountered the names of several customers that he knew were not customers of the firm. Twenty minutes later he had uncovered several million dollars of problem transactions.

* Reference: Law Practice Today Electronic Discovery