winter 2003 vol.9 no. 3                                                                                                                        Return to Contents
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Tame the E-Mail Tiger

Jason Park

PST files are “Personal File Folder” files created by Microsoft Outlook.
Beware! These files can contain far more than archived emails.
The unsuspecting attorney may be producing his client’s calendar, contact database, viruses and much more!

Outlook – More than just email
One of the more popular email programs being used these days is Microsoft Outlook. Outlook is actually a bundle of programs performing a variety of tasks. Outlook has the following functions: Email, Calendar, Contact Database, Journal, Notes and a variety of other functions. Outlook stores backup copies of these files (plus email attachments) in a database with the extension “PST”which stands for Personal Folder File. These files are kept on servers, desktops, laptops and handheld machines. Similar databases exist on the email server. Incoming emails, sent emails and deleted emails may also be preserved along with calendars, contact lists, and tasks. If you receive a copy of a PST file from your client, you’d do well to ask your Litigation Support Provider to look at the file to see what else is contained within this file besides email. Frequently attorneys forward a PST file produced by a client to the other side of a litigation matter without fully understanding what’s actually there. It is entirely possible if not probable that privileged or confidential material will be inadvertently produced if the attorney were to produce the entire PST file to the opposing counsel without having it analyzed first.

Where do you find PST Files?
Emails are files of digital data arranged in a specific order. They are stored in collections of email files. These collections are known as “post offices”, “mailboxes”, databases, datastores, information stores and other terms. One commonly used email client – a program that sends and receives email – is Microsoft Outlook. Another is Lotus Notes. A search of email databases on the server(s) and individual machines throughout the organization provides the greatest likelihood of recovering all copies of a particular email, which can be of critical importance when an opposing party claims they “can’t find” email you suspect should be there. Oftentimes the IT Director or a network administrator has copies of emails going back many years, so be sure to ask them where these files exist.

Specifically, a search of the entire email database(s) may reveal copies of allegedly missing emails that were forwarded to others or copied into responses and new messages. Massive email databases can be searched and indexed relatively quickly. Interesting patterns and information can be derived from the entire database. For example, in a sexual harassment action, an analysis of the email database established that the plaintiff distributed more sexually oriented email than any one else. Often, evidence of spoliation can be found in email database(s) that would not be available from any other source.

So how do I search a PST File?

Using Outlook
There are different ways PST files may be searched. The first way is to restore the PST file to an Outlook Client on a machine in your office. This is a relatively easy task. Simply use Microsoft Outlook to open the PST file on the computer. Be careful. PST files CAN and oftentimes DO contain viruses that may infect your entire network. If you want to open the PST file on your own equipment, it is a good practice to use a machine that has been set-aside specifically for this purpose. This machine should not be connected to your network. Instead, it should be isolated, from other computers during the review. Once the PST has been restored, you can then use the built in search features of Outlook to search for emails containing specific words, or authored by specific people within certain date ranges. This method may be satisfactory for small PST files, however, the larger your email store, the longer Outlook takes to retrieve your search. Also, you’re limited to searching the PSTs one at a time.

Using a full text index
Another way to search the email store is to utilize a full text-indexing tool like ISYS available from www.isysdev.com. ISYS will index multiple PST files simultaneously. This allows the paralegal to search across many email boxes using just one search. ISYS also supports Boolean queries such as “and, or, not, etc” and it will allow you to search for one word within ten words of another word. ISYS also allows the user to build a thesaurus, which finds words that are similar in meaning to the search terms typed. I think that the most important feature of ISYS or any full text indexing software is that once the index is built, running the search takes seconds!

Using Litigation Support Software
A third way to search PST files is to load them into your litigation support software. Both Summation (www.summation.com) and Concordance (www.dataflight.com) offer the ability for law firm personnel to import PST files directly into their application. This comes in handy if you have the most recent versions of the software installed. One downside to this approach is that you would have to load all the different types of software used to author the attachments contained in the email store, in order to review the attachments for the emails. This is not a problem when you’re dealing with Microsoft Word documents, for example, but it can quickly become a problem if your client used industry specific software to create the attachments. Why would this be a problem? Well, licenses for industry specific software are not cheap. And to buy sufficient copies of these programs to allow multiple law firm personnel to review the documents on a case oftentimes becomes cost prohibitive to license, not to mention the additional training needed to use the new programs!

Convert to image
A simpler way to deal with all the multiple email and attachment formats is to have your Litigation Support provider convert all the files to images. This format allows the user to review the documents in a familiar software interface – whether they use their litigation support software, or simply an image viewer. These images can then be electronically Bates numbered! The full text can be extracted for searching and fielded databases can be created. This eliminates the need to Print, Bates Label, Copy, Scan, OCR, and Code the emails. his also allows you to screen for privilege and confidentiality without exposing your entire network to potentially catastrophic viruses and at a fraction of the cost of traditional paper review!

What about the paper documents? Can they be incorporated, too?
Don’t forget about the paper! After all, documents are just as likely to be paper as electronic. You may wish to consider incorporating your paper documents into the database alongside the emails. This will simplify your review and production, because you’re using one program to handle all your evidentiary material. Should you choose this option, your litigation support provider needs to understand the nuances of BOTH media. To entrust your case to a company that specializes in one medium to the exclusion of all others adds project management headaches that will consume your time. Choose carefully…the litigation support provider you select should be equally adept at handling ALL your documents-whether the originated as paper files or electronic files. Set yourself up for success – Tame the Email Tiger…don’t get bitten by it!

Jason Park is the Director of Sales at Litigation Solution, Inc.
Mr. Park provides no cost CLE seminars for law firms, corporate legal departments and legal associations.

Texas Paralegal Journal © Copyright 2003 by the Legal Assistants Division, State Bar of Texas.

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