On December 1, 2006, several amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding any corporation’s duty to preserve and produce electronically stored information (ESI) in the face of litigation — or pending litigation — took effect.
Initially there was some confusion in legal enterprises as to what the amendments actually meant and how it affected them. The main question on their minds was whether it meant making drastic alterations to the way electronic data was preserved, retrieved and produced. Until then they had depended mainly on litigation support departments to handle that.
By now they have their answers and are getting used to it, although they are finding it complicated, open to a lot of questions and expensive.
In the legal line of work one constantly has to cultivate the best and most convenient procedures for collecting data and reviewing it. This involves a lot of extra work and many more resources.
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