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          What is “Custodian Management”? 

          When an organization responds to a legal investigation, the workflow around identifying, preserving, and collecting potentially relevant content is based on the organization’s employees acting as the custodians of relevant data.  

          The key part of Custodian Management is to identify the correct custodians in relation to the case, understand the timeframes of their involvement, and track the data repositories they have been using within that timeframe. 

          Today, the process is often a manual exercise based on email & spreadsheets with very little transparency, questionable data security, and a high risk of human error. 

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          Why Does Custodian Management Matter?

          Custodian management matters in the context of discovery and legal compliance for several key reasons explained below.
           
          • Compliance with Legal and Regulatory Requirements

            Legal Holds: Managing custodians is essential for implementing and tracking legal holds, which prevent the destruction of relevant information.

             

            Regulatory Compliance: Various laws & regulations require organizations to manage & preserve data appropriately. Effective custodian management fulfills these regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of penalties and sanctions.

          • Risk Mitigation

            Avoiding Spoliation: Proper management reduces the risk of spoliation, which is the destruction or alteration of evidence. Spoliation can result in severe legal consequences, including adverse inference rulings and sanctions. 

             

            Reducing Legal Risks: By ensuring that data is preserved and managed correctly, organizations can avoid legal risks associated with non-compliance, such as fines and reputational damage.

          • Enhanced Collaboration and Communication

            Coordination with Legal Teams: Effective custodian management fosters better coordination and communication between custodians, IT, and legal teams, ensuring everyone is aligned and informed throughout the eDiscovery process.

             

            Centralized Information: A well-managed custodian system provides a centralized repository of information, making it easier to track and manage data across various custodians.

          • Ensuring Data Integrity and Availability 

            Preservation of Evidence: Ensure relevant data is identified, preserved, and protected from alteration or deletion. This is crucial for maintaining the integrity of evidence. 

            Timely Access: Provide near instant access to necessary information, enabling legal teams to respond promptly to discovery requests.

          • Efficiency and Cost Savings

            Streamlined Discovery Process: Efficient custodian management streamlines the eDiscovery process, reducing the time and effort required to identify, collect, and produce relevant information. 

             

            Cost Reduction: By optimizing data management and minimizing unnecessary data preservation, organizations can significantly reduce the costs associated with eDiscovery. 

          What Constitutes a Modern Custodian Management System? 

          A modern Custodian Management System provides a range of features and capabilities to effectively support an eDiscovery team. These features ensure the seamless management of data custodians, the preservation of evidence, and the efficiency of the eDiscovery process.  
           
          Timeline
          Builder 

          Event analyzer:
          Identify changes in the org structure, the individual’s portfolio & goals and other properties that help with defining time frames for data preservation & collection. 

          Timeline viewer:
          See relevant events across teams & departments in a unified dashboard, helping to understand critical periods for further analysis & review. 

          Data Mapping
          and Inventory 
          Data Source Identification: Tools to map and inventory all data sources associated with each custodian, including emails, file shares, cloud storage, databases, and physical documents. 
           
          Integration Capabilities:
          Integration with various data repositories and IT systems to facilitate seamless data mapping. 
          Communication Management 
          Centralized Communication: Platform for managing all communications with custodians, including legal hold notifications, reminders, and updates. 
           
          Templates and Workflows: Predefined templates and workflows to streamline communication processes between the eDiscovery teams and the Custodians.
          Centralized Custodian Database
          Current & Historic metadata: 
          Team memberships, project involvement and other relevant information from HRIS & ERP systems. 
           
          Access Control:
          Secure access to custodian information, ensuring only authorized personnel can view or edit profiles. 

          How Does a Custodian Management System Help With a Court-Ready Identification Strategy? 

          Courts, legislatures, and regulators have developed rules concerning how organizations identify electronically stored information (ESI), for civil & criminal proceedings, investigations, and audits.  

          A principal rule is that organizations must take reasonable steps to identify & preserve relevant ESI when litigation or investigation is anticipated or pending against them. Therefore, an organization must be able to locate and preserve relevant ESI in a timely manner. A long-term strategy for a dependable identification of ESI should include the following tasks:

          Hand about to bang gavel on sounding block in the court room
          • Identifying Key Witnesses and Custodians 
          • Determining Key Time Frames 
          • Identifying Potentially Relevant Document & Data Types 
          • Understanding Data Sources 
          • File Storage 
          • Email Systems 
          • Backup Media, Retired Hardware, and Disaster Recovery Systems 
          • Legacy Systems 
          • Cloud Computing or Third-Party Systems 
          • Additional Data Sources 

          Who Are We Really Looking For?

          The difficulties of identifying the true data custodian can be seen in the following example:

          A legal request is emailed to the eDiscovery team in a 12,000 employee organization.

          All email communication data from Tracy Jones, between 1st January 2018 and 31st December 2019 needs to be provided for review.

          The eDiscovery team faces several problems:

          • There are 3 current employees with that name. 
          • There is 1 former employee with that name. 
          • There is an employee who, through marriage, became Tracy Jones, during this timeframe.

          Which one is the right one?

          Without additional metadata, consolidation, and analysis this poses a problem for the team and potentially leaves the organization at risk for litigation.

          Benefits of a Modern Custodian Management System

          A modern Custodian Management System can dramatically reduce the burden of this often manual “fire drill” and provide dependable, auditable results in minutes instead of days, freeing up valuable time at the early stage of an investigation. 

          Due to the excellent data quality in a Custodian Management system, it also reduces the risk of “over-collecting” information that is irrelevant to the case and mitigates the risk of “under-collecting” ESI, which poses a risk to the integrity and completeness of the evidence.

          This ensures that all relevant ESI is accurately captured and preserved, supporting thorough and defensible legal and compliance processes.

          Modern notebook computer with future technology media symbols
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          CaseCrafter is an innovative product suite, helping legal teams make better decisions at the early stages of the eDiscovery process.

          By integrating with other platforms such as Microsoft 365 & Active Directory, CaseCrafter can also compute the history of devices, communication channels, and data storage facilities that any user has used within a given timeframe.

          Explore CaseCrafter

          Get Started With Your Project Today!

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