eDiscovery for Law Firms That Would Rather Practice Law

One Technical Team From Demand to Production Set

Global Digital Forensics has worked with law firms since 1992. In that time we have supported AmLaw 100 litigation departments and small and midsize businesses through preservation, collection, processing, review and production, and we have explained the results in reports, affidavits, deposition and testimony when the method was challenged. The discovery problem on your desk is one we have handled many times under a different set of facts.

A coordinated engagement gives counsel one documented chain from source identification through production: who held the data, what was preserved, how it was collected, what processing changed and what was produced. Those records live together in the matter plan, so when the other side questions a gap or a date range you have a named contact and a dated answer rather than a search through vendor tickets.

Our written proposal states the sources, the volumes, the software and version, the hosting term, the users, the recurring charges and the exclusions. Additional collection, expert support or specialist work is itemized separately, so an agreed price means what it says and the client is never surprised by a line item that was implied rather than written.

How GDF Works Alongside the Litigation Team

GDF identifies sources, implements preservation, collects, processes, hosts, prepares the review set and produces, and we document each step. The partner sees one plan, one budget and one examiner accountable for the technical work, and the associates spend their hours on the case instead of on load files.

Our collection logs, processing records, exception reports and custody documentation sit apart from review coding, so marking a document as not responsive never rewrites the record of how it was acquired, and the technical basis of the production can be examined on its own. When a declaration about method is needed, the examiner who did the work signs it.

Three Ways to Work With Us

Firms come to us with different amounts of discovery capability, so the engagement is shaped around what the litigation team wants to keep and what it wants to hand off. Each model is scoped in writing with the same documentation standard.

Hand the technical work to GDF

For firms that want the discovery workstream managed, GDF runs the agreed interviews, hold documentation, collection, processing, hosting, review operations and production under a matter plan that names the contacts, the reporting cadence, the scope controls and the price. Partners see the decisions and the deliverables without supervising the mechanics.

Share the work with your litigation team

Many firms keep custodian interviews, hold notices or first pass review inside the firm and hand GDF the cloud and device collection, the processing, the hosting and the production checks. We assign technical privilege flags and expert declarations where they are needed, and the engagement record shows who did what and where each handoff occurred.

Use our hosting with your own reviewers

Firms with their own review capability can run the project on GDF hosting using the functions confirmed in the proposal, which can include collection, early analytics, duplicate removal, threading and production. Specialist support is on call for the technical questions, with access, included functions and response arrangements documented, so the firm runs its own review with an examiner a phone call away.

Tell us which model fits the firm and the matter and we will scope it in writing before anything is engaged.

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A Record Built for the Meet and Confer

Every collection record identifies the tools and versions, the authority and authentication used, the acquisition time, the integrity values and the personnel. Source records stay linked through processing and review, so your team can trace any produced document back to the custodian, the system and the collection that captured it, and can answer a question about scope or method with a document rather than a recollection.

Processing exceptions, unreadable files, encrypted items and sources that could not be reached are reported with counts, not buried. We would rather tell you about a gap in the collection while there is still time to address it than have the other side find it first. When the method itself is challenged, our experts explain it in an affidavit, at deposition or on the stand.

One Standard From Single Custodian to Multiparty Action

A one custodian employment dispute and a coordinated action with dozens of custodians run on the same principles: documented sources, controlled processing, reported exceptions and verified production. What changes is the size of the team, the hosting plan and the review structure, which we scale to the matter rather than to a template.

In one class action a New York firm came to us with two terabytes of raw financial data, millions of documents and emails and source code from a legacy mainframe, with no access to the live system. GDF extracted the email and document metadata, correlated the records into batches and timelines with link analysis tools we developed, and the firm kept us on for later discovery requests and deposition support. Read the data discovery case study to see how that engagement ran.