Forensic Investigation

.The days of producing or reviewing boxes of paper documents in the discovery process is rapidly disappearing. Given the rampant increase in the use of technology in the past 10 years, the judiciary is expecting attorneys to properly produce and analyze gigabytes of data to find all relevant evidence.

The average hard drive holds about 5 GB of data but a network server may have a terabyte of data (1000 GBs). Reliance on the client to responsibly collect electronic evidence which may be potentially damaging is less and less defensible given the increased tendency for judges to hand down stiff sanctions where there has been a negligent or fraudulent data collection. Green v. Blitz 2011 WL 806011. Your firm has been avoiding this because:

The technical language sounds unfamiliar and confusing.
A thorough e-discovery process requires hiring more IT support or cobbling software from too many different vendors to be effective.
You already invested in Summation or Concordance and that should be sufficient.
It's too expensive for non-complex litigation.
It will reduce your billables or put your paralegals and attorneys out of work.
You've been told you have to ship the hard drive data to the mainland for processing.
It's too expensive for a small firm like yours.

Judges, however, are losing patience and leveling more frequent and larger sanctions for e-discovery abuse or negligence. Ignorance of the technology or the plea of prohibitive cost for conducting a full e-discovery are not "reasonable" excuses for failure to produce. As Hawaii's only local service provider for two of the leading e-discovery software systems, EnCase and Clearwell, Cetra Technology now provides the Hawaii legal profession and corporate enterprises with an affordable, trustworthy alternative

WHAT IS ENCASE® AND CLEARWELL?

The Guidance Software from EnCase® is recognized globally as the world leader in digital investigations. Clearwell Systems is consistently ranked as the e-discovery industry leader by independent surveys and is transforming the way law firms, enterprises, and government agencies respond to litigation discovery requests, regulatory inquiries, and internal investigations.

For law firms, Cetra Technology uses Encase’s Guidance Software to reliably collect data from any computer or phone device without interfering with the source drive. Guidance Software can forensically detect any deleted or damaged files and reconstruct the missing data. Cetra Technology then feeds the information through the Clearwell software which culls the data based on the parameters set in the attorneys’ meet and confer: time range, type of file to be collected and custodian to collect from. For Corporate or Government enterprise, Clearwell presents a fully integrated end-to-end system from collection to production.

WHY ENCASE AND CLEARWELL FROM CETRA TECHNOLOGY?

As licensor of the Guidance and Clearwell software, Cetra Technology is the only e-discovery service provider located in Hawaii. All other providers require sending data or hard drives to the mainland for processing. Small and mid-size law firms and organizations that use Cetra Technology no longer have to make a capital investment in e-discovery software which cannot be recouped from the litigation expenses. Cetra Technology’s license of Guidance Software and Clearwell provides the following benefits:

Affordably offers an integrated end-to-end system that will lower discovery costs for the law firm, agency or enterprise.
Removes the need to incur expensive software package, installation, maintenance and upgrade costs to conduct e-discovery tasks.
Allows reviewers to drastically cull nonresponsive, irrelevant data by at least 80% within minutes.
Attorneys get a very early assessment of what data has been collected, what key words are most prominent (suggesting relevancy) and who knew what and when.
Non-technical reviewers can easily tag, filter, word search, and concept search subsets of the data and create reports of the tagging and selection decisions.
Months of tedious document review are reduced to weeks for production with less need to write down billables for the review process.
Levels the playing field for small firms to compete with large firms in handling large or difficult to obtain discovery requests.
Eliminates reliance on client self-collection which increases the reliability of the collection process.
Inefficiencies and inaccuracies of traditional document review are substantially reduced and less subject to Motions for Failure to Produce and Sanctions.

E-DISCOVERY BASICS

E-discovery is an evolving process comprised of various stages. The most generally accepted depiction of the entire e-discovery process can be found in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). Launched in May 2005, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project was created to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery for vendors and consumers alike. The completed reference model provides a common, flexible and extensible framework for the development, selection, evaluation and use of electronic discovery products and services.

The Clearwell Early Case Analysis allows lawyers to see what data has been retrieved before the review cull down – not possible with manual review tools.

For law firms, Cetra Technology uses Guidance Software from EnCase for identification and collection, and Clearwell’s processing, review and production modules to complete the end to end process. While the traditional model of paper production only allows the attorneys to review documents after final processing, Clearwell’s Transparent Pre-processing view enables attorneys to have an earlier look at the evidence during to understand the scope and source of the data collected. Another unique Clearwell feature is the Email Discussion Thread that enable reviewers to quickly see who knew what, and when.

Effect of Changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for Electronic Discovery

A new set of revisions to the FRCP took effect in December 2006, with practical changes in e-discovery rules that will make it easier for courts and litigating parties to manage electronic records and digital evidence. The Rules are designed to encourage uniformity and provide a structure for earlier and more predictable agreements, arguments and motions practice surrounding electronic discovery and discovery law. Further, the Rules span several electronic discovery phases, from legal hold to production.

Key changes to the FRCP include:

Rule 16 (b) — parties must prepare for a schedule conference to address its plans for e-discovery and document production within 120 days of a company filing a lawsuit.
Rule 26 (f) — parties must meet and confer at least 21 days before holding the scheduling conference to create a discovery plan and raise issues as to the form of production for electronic discovery.
Rule 16 (b) (5) — will make it possible for the court to include the e-discovery agreement that results from the scheduling conference in the scheduling order. This is designed to alert the court to the possible need to address the handling of discovery of electronically stored information early in the litigation.
Rule 26 (a) — Rule 26(a)(1)(B) is amended to parallel Rule 34(a) by recognizing that a party must disclose electronically stored information as well as documents that it may use to support its claims or defenses. The term “electronically stored information” has the sam same broad meaning in Rule 26(a)(1) as in Rule 34(a).expands the definition of e-discovery material from “documents” or “data compilations” to include all electronically stored information (ESI). You can now discover from e-mail (electronic mail or email) and word documents to voice-mail, instant messaging, back-up tapes, database files and more. These are all now considered to be forms of electronic evidence or digital evidence.
Rule 26 (b) (2) — includes provisions for second-tier discovery and cost-shifting arguments. Requesting parties cannot assume that a company should produce backup tapes. Responding party can show that e-discovery request would cause an undue burden. In this case, the requesting party must show good cause for the request.
Rule 26 (b) (5) — permits parties to retrieve inadvertently disclosed, privileged information under “clawback” agreements.
Rule 34 (b) — allows the party requesting electronically stored information to specify the form to be used in production. This can range from native file formats to proprietary.

In order to meet the needs of local counsel, Cetra Technology provides Identification, Collection and Preservation Services for electronic data. Cetra Technology’s experienced engineers ensure that data will be collected and preserved in a defensible manner to mitigate the risk of court sanctions due to self-collection errors. Cetra engineers provide forensically sound computer imaging of email, file servers, archives, fax servers, accounting and voicemail data and follow up with in-depth analysis of the data. We understand that proper documentation of the collection, chain of custody and analysis process is often the key to success, should the data be subjected to close legal scrutiny. Cetra Technology is the only company based in Hawaii that is able to provide forensic data collection services of data which can then be moved from the collection and analysis stage seamlessly into review and production with Clearwell Systems.
Our forensic team can reduce the burden and costs of electronic discovery by offering:

A secure chain of custody to ensure the admissibility of evidence and a forensically sound collection.
Expert testimony if needed to verify the data recovery process and verify the integrity of the data.
State of the art imaging technology with Guidance Software to preserve the integrity of evidence.
Consultative guidance with legal and electronic discovery matters.
Effective management of far-reaching, complex volumes of corporate data and technical issues.
Secured preservation and storage of electronically stored information.

DATA REDUCTION

Our highly qualified computer forensic consultants can provide a data reduction solution that is customizable based on criteria provided by counsel using pre-processing methods to streamline the processing and analysis stages of the electronic discovery model. Cetra Technology can remove non-responsive and make suggestions on the most efficient strategy to reduce and filter data. Culling of irrelevant data can be performed upon search terms, date range, custodian, file type, file size, or strong signature filtering.

This preliminary data reduction helps clients to avoid unnecessary data processing costs. Other benefits of our solutions include greater efficiencies within the processing solution, defensible iterative early case assessments, and elimination of unnecessary attorney billable hours. The benefits of data reduction include:

Streamlined attorney workflow
Elimination of irrelevant data
Access to defensible data reduction technologies
Customizable filtering and culling

The Cetra Technology Solution for Law Firms
Cetra Technology’s legal e-discovery solution provides key benefits for Hawaii law firms, enabling them to:

Comply with changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on electronic discovery and prospective changes to Hawaii Rules of Civil Procedure.
Utilize a state of the art e-discovery tool that can be an immediate pass-through cost and not a capital investment.
Access a simple and intuitive software for non-technical users who can be productive immediately with little or no training
Simplify their IT process with one system providing end-to-end processing, analysis, review to production.
Rapidly analyze large volumes of electronic documents to gain insight into case facts and determine case strategy.
Determine scope of the case earlier for more accurate estimation of budget requirements and production timelines
Conduct Early Case Assessment to determine all evidence custodians, keywords, topics, and discussion threads relevant to case strategy.
Identify potential smoking gun documents and determine who knew what, and when.
Perform tasks more quickly and accurately at reduced billable.
Standardize review quality and enforce a classification criteria across multiple reviewers and create reports to review tagging decisions.
Consolidate the entire e-discovery process using a single solution that removes the need to customize moving data between multiple discovery tools.
Integrates and enhances investment in other review products such as Summation and Concordance.
EnCase Guidance Software Identification and Collection
Identifies and safely collects data from critical data sources from desktops, laptops, network shares and applications in the cloud. Fortune 500 corporations and government agencies working with eDiscovery service providers frequently use EnCase products to conduct eDiscovery collection and preservation.

Clearwell E-Discovery Brief
In many cases there are no witnesses and email is the only link to past events. Thus, rapidly analyzing and finding all applicable (and potentially damaging) documents, emails, and attachments is a critical task in almost every lawsuit. The traditional way of manually reviewing and analyzing electronically stored information is fraught with inconsistencies, duplicative efforts, and rising costs The changes to the FRCP now contemplate the use of electronic discovery and have set guidelines for compliance. Download this solution brief to learn how Clearwell can reduce e-discovery costs by as much as 80%.

Clearwell Early Case Assessment
Early case assessment is now a vital method for reducing legal discovery costs and developing case strategy at the onset of a legal matter. However, the manual approach to e-discovery provides very little visibility into the volume and makeup of case data bound for processing and lacks an effective method for early assessment of what data should be deemed relevant.

Clearwell accelerates early case assessments and helps customers accurately estimate the scope of e-discovery to be processed and reviewed, prepare for meet & confer conferences, and assess case facts to evaluate risk and settlement value.

Clearwell Processing and Analysis
The Clearwell Processing & Analysis Module provides the ability to rapidly and accurately filter, process, search, and analyze data in multiple formats and languages. Users can perform early case assessments and rapidly cull down data, thereby reducing overall e-discovery costs. Clearwell supports the workflows required , delivering deep insight into case facts and enabling a new level of transparency and defensibility throughout the e-discovery process.

Clearwell Review and Production
The Clearwell Review & Production Module provides a wide range of features needed to rapidly identify responsive and privileged documents. Enables reviewer to redact, auto-redact, identify near duplicates, perform decision tree tagging, auto batch, manage folders, bate stamp and prepare for export.

Cetra Technology Solutions for In House Counsel
The Clearwell E-Discovery Platform is the leading enterprise e-discovery data solution that enables enterprises to manage all of their legal, regulatory, and investigative matters with a single application. The Clearwell Platform was purpose-built for e-discovery, making it easy fororganizations to defensibly solve real-world challenges across the entire e-discovery lifecycle, from legal hold and collections through analysis, review, and production. Clearwell can reduce e-discovery review by as much as 80%.

Compliance Solution
Regulatory compliance in the financial industry has become increasingly challenging as regulation around electronic transactions and correspondence have tightened, the amount of electronically stored information has grown, and consequences for non-compliance have become more severe. With Sarbanes Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Acts, SEC and FINRA guidelines, financial institutions are under significant pressure to not only comply but also effectively respond to regulatory inquiries on-time.

Legal Hold Module
Clearwell Legal Hold streamlines legal hold management and enables organizations to rapidly preserve and collect critical data on demand using one seamless application across the e-discovery lifecycle.

Clearwell Processing and Analysis
The Clearwell Processing & Analysis Module provides the ability to rapidly and accurately filter, process, search, and analyze data in multiple formats and languages. Users can perform early case assessments and rapidly cull down data, thereby reducing overall e-discovery costs. Clearwell supports the workflows required , delivering deep insight into case facts and enabling a new level of transparency and defensibility throughout the e-discovery process.

Clearwell Review and Production
The Clearwell Review & Production Module provides a wide range of features needed to rapidly identify responsive and privileged documents. Enables reviewer to redact, auto-redact, identify near duplicates, perform decision tree tagging, autobatch, manage folders, bate stamp and prepare for export.

E-Discovery “How-To” Guide: Practical Recommendations for Streamlining Corporate E-Discovery
When enterprises are not sure where and how to begin improving their e-discovery process and are struggling to identify the best technologies to help them, we can discuss the phases of the e-discovery process and the best practices and relevant technologies for each phase, to guide the e-discovery team’s decision-making process.

Strategies for Implementing a Defensible Legal Hold
In response to the judicial system’s increasing scrutiny of the legal hold process, organizations have implemented manual processes and disparate tools to comply with the duty to preserve. These practices lack a holistic approach to safeguarding against sanctions and are laden with inefficient processes with undue risk. The Clearwell Legal Hold integrates a defensible legal hold workflow to streamline the preservation process in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

Managed Services Program
With small litigation support teams and large case loads, most enterprises incur large legal bills from outside counsel and significant processing bills from e-discovery service providers. The in-house e-discovery value proposition has proven to reduce costs for many corporations. However, three internal obstacles often hinder companies as they evaluate the opportunity to bring e-discovery in-house: infrastructure, headcount, and operational risk. Clearwell’s Managed Services Program is designed to deliver the value of in-house e-discovery while allowing enterprises to avoid internal obstacles faced when insourcing e-discovery technology.

Cetra Technology Solutions for Government
Federal and state agencies face considerable challenges finding critical evidence under tight deadlines and limited budgets. The number of cases and investigations is steadily growing along with the increased amount of electronically stored information. Managing EEOC complaints, fraud investigations or any matter that may require e-discovery is a challenge for government organizations of all sizes. Relying on outdated manual processes is no longer an option as workflows are slow and often require extra personnel and multiple tools to collect data, analyze and sift through gigabytes of irrelevant information, which increases the costs, complexity, and risk of mistakes.

Clearwell’s electronic data discovery software provides a complete, automated solution for government agencies to conduct regulatory and internal investigations in less time using best practices. The net result: organizations automate and streamline their investigation process with one that is repeatable and defensible. Clearwell’s electronic data discovery software provides key benefits for government organizations allowing them to:

Solve cases and investigations quickly using new and automated analysis techniques.
Reduce the cost and complexity by eliminating the need to move data between multiple tools.
Avoid tying up key personnel in a lengthy review process and hiring costly IT staff.
Simplify, streamline and clarify the investigations workflow using best practices.
Analyze data and electronic files with rapid processing and flexible workflows.

EnCase Guidance Software Identification and Collection
Identifies and safely collects data from critical data sources from desktops, laptops, network shares and applications in the cloud. Fortune 500 corporations and government agencies working with eDiscovery service providers frequently use EnCase products to conduct eDiscovery collection and preservation.

Clearwell Processing and Analysis Module
The Clearwell Processing & Analysis Module provides the ability to rapidly and accurately filter, process, search, and analyze data in multiple formats and languages. Users can perform early case assessments and rapidly cull down data, thereby reducing overall e-discovery costs. Clearwell supports the workflows required delivering deep insight into facts and enabling a new level of transparency and defensibility throughout the e-discovery process.

Clearwell Review and Production
The Clearwell Review & Production Module provides a wide range of features needed to rapidly identify and classify documents. Enables reviewer to redact, auto-redact, identify near duplicates, perform decision tree tagging, autobatch and export data.

Clearwell’s eDiscovery software streamlines the digital investigation process, helping investigators handle more investigations in less time while improving the accuracy of the results. Clearwell’s eDiscovery software forensically collects electronic files from across the organization, automatically analyzes the data, and enables investigators to rapidly identify all evidence and suspects involved in a corporate or government investigation.

Key benefits of using Clearwell’s eDiscovery software for digital investigations include:

Easily collect suspect data from relevant data sources in a forensically sound manner using a single solution
Solve investigations in hours instead of days by utilizing automated analysis
Rapidly identify all the participants in the investigation and determine who knew what, and when
Effortlessly uncover hidden concepts at the earliest stage of an investigation.
Quickly respond to internal sponsors by easily sifting through millions of documents to find the smoking gun evidence
Improve investigator productivity and enable teams to conduct more investigations with more accurate results
Eliminate the manual review of irrelevant data, reducing the duration of each investigation.

Forensic Investigation

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