Our first episode is “eDiscovery: The Challenges of Social Media (and Other Ephemeral Data Types)”.  I asked our guests—Jennifer Joyce and the Hon. John M. Facciola (Ret.)—about what is meant by “eDiscovery.”  Judge Facciola said:

“Well, up until a relatively recent amendment, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not even define a document to include ESI.  So that’s how far the legal system was behind the world.  When we talk about ESI, we mean, data generated or created by the use of a computer.  It becomes of legal significance, because it is now expressly made discoverable by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”

And when I asked Judge Facciola whether most discovery at this stage is eDiscovery, he responded:

“It’s hard to imagine any other kind of discovery.  I understand that any given year 98% of all the communications on the face of the earth are digital.  As a result, nearly all of the information involved in the justice system is in electronic format.  I don’t know of much other kind of discovery, at least in terms of a production by a party.  Obviously, we still have depositions and things like that, but it’s really taken over.  Particularly in the business cases where it’s about the only discovery there is.”

Interested in hearing more?  Want to know how Jennifer described ephemeral data and some of the more important forms of it?  Check out Episode 1 here (available June 29).