What is e-discovery?

E-discovery (electronic discovery) is the discovery process applied to electronically stored information (ESI) — email, documents, messages, databases, and other digital records — in litigation, investigations, and regulatory matters.

The stages

E-discovery is commonly described as a series of stages (the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, or EDRM):

1. Identification — determine what ESI might be relevant and where it lives.
2. Preservation — protect that ESI from deletion, usually via a litigation hold.
3. Collection — gather the ESI from its sources.
4. Processing & review — filter, deduplicate, and review for relevance and privilege.
5. Production — deliver the responsive, non-privileged material to the other side.

Why records management matters

E-discovery is where records management meets litigation, and the connection is direct:

• Organizations with well-managed records — disposed of defensibly on schedule and findable when needed — face lower e-discovery cost and risk, because there’s less irrelevant material to wade through and relevant records can be located reliably.
• Organizations drowning in ROT (redundant, obsolete, trivial data) face the opposite: bloated, expensive review and a higher chance of missing or mishandling relevant ESI.

The cost driver

Review is the most expensive stage of e-discovery, and its cost scales with volume. That’s why disposing of records you’re no longer required to keep isn’t just tidy — it directly reduces future e-discovery expense and the risk of spoliation. Sound records management and information governance are, in effect, e-discovery cost control.