In addition to enjoying another fun-filled Chicago summer, BlueStar Computer Solutions has continued to focus on being a one-stop source for litigation solutions. The proposed changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), effective December 1, 2006, for the first time will address electronic data in the discovery process. To ensure our value proposition directly impacts our client's needs we have been busy augmenting our staff, products and services. Featured in this month's Newsletter are an introduction to our new Director of Business Development, a commentary on Native File Review and Production and a call-to-action discussion of Email Intelligence and Forensics solutions.

With over thirty years experience of delivering solutions to Law Firms, Offices of the General Counsel and Attorneys General, David's knowledgebase and expertise in Electronic Content Management (ECM), Compliance and Business Process Improvement (BPI) make him a valuable asset to the BlueStar Computer Solutions team. Former clients include many Am Law 100 firms and Fortune 100 Corporations. Installed solutions include Litigation Support, Case and Practice Management and Records Management. David's focus on the Customer and Quality align perfectly with BlueStar's philosophy and Mission Statement as well as being the consummate business professional. He will always welcome your inquiries and the opportunity to learn more about you and your organization's needs. Do not hesitate to contact him directly at: david@bluestarcs.com

The axiom that "Ignorance is no defense" is now applicable to the new world of litigation technology. If you do not understand the features and benefits, as well as risks, of the new tools available and the impact of the proposed FRCP amendments, you might unwittingly be exposing your client or organization to unexpected verdicts with substantial judgements.

A "native file" contains Metadata, which is electronic information stored within a document that is not evident by viewing the document in its native application (e.g. Microsoft Word). Metadata may include a great deal more data than simply the author and who viewed and/or edited the document and when, as well as the "Properties" of the document as can be seen within Microsoft Word. Other data that is added automatically might include change tracking, version control with micro-versions of the document, email recipients and user-specified custom properties.

Only a few years ago native file review and production were limited to using the native applications and litigators were forced to make a decision at the beginning of an e-discovery project whether to convert electronic documents to TIFF ("tagged image file format" - an image) or to maintain the files in their native format for review and production - requiring access to each native application.

In current platforms native files are loaded into an online database repository, along with extracted text and Metadata if appropriate, and the technology behind the repository can offer a combination of native file review and TIFF image review from a single online repository including essential features such as redaction, highlighting, tagging/categorization collaboration and seamless production of documents in any desired form factor. The benefits are obvious and include reduced risk of spoliation, facilitated strategy and collaboration, ease of response and the ability to manage compliance and costs.

Email has become an integral part of normal business operations. Virtually, all executive, management, administrative and line personnel have access to, and use, email. According to the market intelligence firm IDC, 35 billion email messages are generated every day - a 250% increase from five years ago. Learning from the Enron and Worldcomm events and more recently the back-dating of stock options, executing compliance plan(s) mandated by Sarbanes- Oxley and/or other regulatory mandates, adhering to the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) or ensuring the control and capture of intellectual property, responsible organizations must focus on being more proactive than reactive.

More traditional sources of data, like documents and core business application databases can be managed readily by the majority of available content/records management applications or extensions to existing core business platforms, like Oracle, at a reasonable incremental cost. Emails and their attachments are far more complex due to the sheer volume, the extreme number of individuals potentially involved in a single email thread and the variety of locations available to send and receive email. The good news is that technology exists to address these needs. The bad news is that the investment in this technology can be, or appear to be, cost-prohibitive.

To support legal or self-imposed IT requirements for document retention or discovery and to manage the high volume of email, most organizations have established and executed email archiving strategies. As part of mandated compliance plans many organizations have invested in tools to assist in periodic reviews of a percentage of existing and archived emails. Very few have implemented a proactive "before-the-hammer-drops" review and analysis solution. The majority of the email intelligence and forensic solutions available today can be used proactively, reactively or both. The solutions are offered as a turn-key service, an in- house installed platform and/or a hosted solution over the Internet and/or an "appliance" (software bundled with hardware plug & play). Depending if you are a corporation or a law firm, each offering would present its own advantages and cost/benefit result.

Management will sleep better knowing that you have implemented a single platform that provides an on- demand view into any combination of email repositories that can perform nightly incremental "crawls" so that when called upon the results are current with all email repositories. Options can include discussion threads, email relevance ranking, group-to-group communications flows, advanced search, automatic de-duplication, hit-highlighting, tagging, automatic topic classification, export, print, analytics and a user- friendly dashboard.

Whether you feel there is a problem or will be, or want to protect and save intellectual property that would have gone unnoticed, or find your organization involved in an unexpected litigation or regulatory request, you owe it to your organization to investigate, select and implement the appropriate solution that will deliver the results required by all of these scenarios. Learn more...