spring 2004 vol. 9 no. 4                                                                                                                             Return to Contents
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eDiscovery with Summation® Version 2.5

Malcolm Wells

You’ve probably noticed more and more CDs mixed in with paper documents during the discovery process. These CDs can contain hundreds of letters, spreadsheets and emails. The industry has clamored for documents in their native formats for years, because of the very real cost savings. Now that we’ve got them, what do we do now?

Traditionally, firms have taken those files, printed them out, sent them to be scanned and OCR’d and incorporated with the rest of the paper documents. This process effectively eliminates the primary advantages of eDiscovery: cost savings and the additional information available with the eDocuments. Now, Summation®, the industry-leading litigation support software, has made processing e-documents more thorough than ever.

First, why do we even care about eDiscovery? There are several reasons:

• Ubiquity — Statistically, somewhere between 93% and 98% of documents today, including emails, are created electronically. Most of them are never printed.
• Metadata — Every document created electronically carries additional information about that document that is not normally printed out. This information contains author information, dates, revisions and other data pertaining to the document’s origins. This metadata can be critical to a case.
• Cost — imagine the cost savings available if one doesn’t have to print and scan all of those documents. Even if you do hire an outside vendor to process the eDocs for loading, the costs are a small fraction of their paper counterparts.
• Speed — eDocs can be loaded into a database faster than the traditional paper method (less than half the time), allowing you to prepare your case much more quickly.

Loading eDiscovery
The Summation® Blaze v2.5 LG Gold and iBlaze systems include built-in utilities for loading eDiscovery. You can use these utilities to load eMail and eDocs from Volumes that you receive, or you can opt to have a service bureau batch process files for you.

Reasons for Loading eDiscovery with the Built-in Summation® Utilities

There are several reasons why you might choose to use the Summation utilities instead of sending the work to a service bureau:

1) The files you need to work with are in common formats that Summation can process adequately, such as .PST files, MS Word files, and MS Excel files.
2) The files you need to work with include unusual types that you nonetheless have the ability to convert to a format Summation can process. For example, you might be able to load Eudora or GroupWise files into MS Outlook, convert them to .PST files, and load the converted files into Summation.
3) You have QuickView Plus and plan to use it with Summation to view file formats that Summation’s eDocs Viewer is not designed to handle. You could use QuickView Plus to save the files to formats that Summation can index, or petrify* a limited number of eDocs into TIFF images that you could then load into Summation.
4) You have Adobe® Acrobat® and plan to use it to capture and save as PDF files eDocs that Summation’s eDocs Viewer is not designed to handle.
5) Your client pre-processed some of the eDiscovery, taking care of tasks such as removing encryption and duplicates, and sent you files ready to load into Summation.
6) Perhaps due to budgetary concerns client directives, or for other reasons.

Reasons to use a Third Party to Create eDiscovery Load Files

1) Files that have passwords or are encrypted.
2) You have a large volume of files that need to be loaded.
3) You need virus scanning done on a large scale.
4) You need to process a larger range of file formats.
5) You need to petrify a large volume into PDF or TIFF formats.
6) You need to de-duplicate eDiscovery (multiple copies of same eDoc/eMail).
7) To extract metadata beyond Summation’s utility.
8) To provide a single load for paper and eDocs/eMails

In e-Discovery, typically the client’s IT department provides you with volumes, (normally CD-ROMs, DVDs, hard drives or other media used to store eDiscovery), containing eMail from key players’ eMail boxes bundled as .PST files (Microsoft Outlook archive files), MS Excel spreadsheets files, and MS Word word-processing files relating to the litigation.

Once you have received this information, there are several “best practices” in regards to the media:

1) Make a copy. Store the original. Work with the copy.
2) Scan all files for viruses, especially .PST files.
3) Create an unique name for each volume.
4) Create a Log containing:
• Date Received
• Name, Contact Info
• DocIDs
• Type of Media
• Persons Related to Volume

Processing eDiscovery

Processing eDiscovery is the first step you take toward using Summation Version 2.5 to handle electronic information gathered during discovery. Summation Version 2.5 includes a new tool called the eDiscovery Console that you will use for processing. In this stage, you will:
• Start with electronic files located on some form of storage medium (CD, hard drive, etc.) that you received from your client or opposing party;
• Move those files into an existing case within Summation using Summation’s eDiscovery Console; and
• Associate identifying information with the files and record comments relevant to them in document database summaries.

On its end, the Summation eDiscovery Console will:
• Provide you with a working copy of the files that can be integrated with other uses of Summation;
• Offer you the ability to process the entire contents of the storage medium or, if you prefer, only a portion of the contents;
• Give you the opportunity to use a central location to manage electronic files gathered during discovery; and,
• Create a Volume folder with three other folders in it (a “PSTFiles” folder, an “NSFFiles” folder, and an “eDocFiles” folder) and separate eMail files (.PST files from Microsoft Outlook and .NSF files from Lotus Notes) from individual eDocs files (e.g. MS Excel spreadsheet) to simplify future loading.

The first thing you do is to create a directory, or repository, and copy the files from the volume to that directory. It should NOT be in the Summation Directory structure.
Next, access the eDiscovery Console; this can be done at least a couple of ways:
1) With your Case Explorer window in focus, click “File” from the menu bar and select “Process eDiscovery…”.
2) Right click on the “eDocs & eMail” folder, select ‘eDocs & eMail Utilities’, then “Process eDiscovery…”

This action will bring up a dialog box with five tabs; you want to begin with Process Entire Volume. As with each of the tabs, there are directions on how to use the fields in the tab. In this case, you will identify the “repository” folder, which tells Summation® where the eDocs and eMails will be located. You then create an unique “Volume Name” to identify what the eDocs/eMails refer to.
Browse out to the Volume, or media, that contain the files. The Console will then show you what .PST and .NSF files or included on the media. When you click on one of these files, the Console will automatically fill in the fields in the PST and NSF File Information box. You can add further identifier information in the Volume Comments and eMail File Comments fields. Then, press the Copy Volume button.

This action will create a new folder in, titled with the “Volume Name” you selected, in your “repository” directory. In the new folder, three sub-folders are also created: eDocFiles, NSFFiles and PSTFiles. Each of those folders will have eDocs, Pldings and PST Files directories. This is where the eDocs and eMail files will ultimately reside.

Now that the volume has been processed, you will use the other tabs in the Console to actually load the eDocs and eMails to use in Summation®. As you might imagine, the Load eDocs tab will load the eDocuments, and the Load eMail tab will load the eMail files. When you follow the instructions on these tabs, the eDocs will be placed in the “Volume Name”/eDocFiles/eDocs folder. The NSF eMail files will be placed in the “Volume Name”/NSFFiles/PST Files folder, and the PST eMail files will be placed in the “Volume Name/PSTFiles/PST Files folder. You are now able to use these files in Summation®.

To view these files, go to your Case Explorer window and open the eDocs and eMails folder. Double-click on either the eDocs, eMail or eMail Attachment folders. This will present you with a column view of the database created. You will note the eDoc tab available to you; click on this tab and you’ll be able to see a text version of the eDoc or eMail. Scrolling to the end of the document, you’ll be able to see the eDocs’ metadata; this is available only in the text view. On the Icon bar, you should see icons for Text and Original. Clicking on the Original icon, you will be able to see the document in its native format, provided that you have the document’s application loaded on your PC.

To view eMails in their original format, you will need Microsoft Outlook to view PST files, or Lotus Notes to view NSF files. The email’s metadata is automatically loaded into the e-form Table (or active table, provided it contains the necessary fields) of the database as objective coding.

Utilizing electronic documents in the discovery process will only increase in usage. Summation’s new e-Discovery Console is the most efficient and thorough way to load these electronic documents for analysis and searching. For more information on the Console, or Summation in general, please contact us at info@cuwlitsupport.com, or visit the Summation website at www.summation.com.

Malcolm Wells, CUW LitSupport. For more information call 214-827-1065 or visit www.cuwlitsupport.com.

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

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