Archiving and ECM are first steps to intelligent collection and preservation

Synopsis Part 3: Archiving and ECM are first steps to intelligent collection and preservation
Synopsis Part 2: CIOs and their IT departments learn legal concepts to solve data retention problems
Synopsis Part 1: Improving legal counsel's mood with electronic data discovery tools

Electronic data discovery Interview - Aaref Hilaly, Chief Executive Officer, Clearwell Systems  (Part 3 of 3)

Aaref brings extensive technology, entrepreneurial management, and Fortune 500 consulting expertise to his position. Prior to Clearwell, he was Co-Founder, President and CEO of CenterRun, which he led from inception in 2000 to its acquisition by Sun Microsystems (NYSE:SUN) in August 2003. CenterRun was a leading provider of application provisioning software and today forms the basis of Sun's data center automation product suite.

By Joshua Konkle writing for DCIGInc.com
www.dciginc.com

Joshua Konkle: What is causing the need for intelligent preservation/collection by the corporation?

Aaref Hilaly: The single biggest factor is the growth in electronic data.

Joshua Konkle: There appears to be some gap between what legal teams require to support eDiscovery and the capabilities available today in data management technology.  What advice do you have as a vendor trying to assist their clients in addressing litigation readiness challenges?

Aaref Hilaly:  A lot of vendors out there are trying to be all things to all customers--claiming to provide capabilities that can support the entire eDiscovery process from start to finish. This is simply not possible. eDiscovery is complex, with many steps that involve IT, litigation support, general counsel, outside counsel, and outside consultants/service providers.

We encourage our customers to look for vendors that fit within the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), a guide created by industry pundits George Socha and Tom Gelbmann. The EDRM clearly identifies the many steps of electronic data discovery, and helps enterprises understand what types of solutions they need for each piece of the electronic data discovery process. As mentioned before, collection and preservation (storage) is the first necessary step, but an intelligent solution is needed to conduct processing, analysis and review--the most costly portion of electronic data discovery is processing and then review. Ultimately, Clearwell helps our customers understand the EDRM, challenges related to it, and suggest resources for implementing best practices.

Joshua Konkle: How are you dealing with the forensic collection of Enterprise Blogs and Wikis?

Aaref Hilaly: We haven't seen a need to process these data types within companies or in electronic data discovery processing.  However, our expectation is that it will be an open data format, such as HTML or XML.  As customers drive the demand for it, we'll be adding the functionality to our product road map.

Part 1 and 2 of DCIGs interview with Mr. Aaref Hilaly appeared earlier this month.

If you would like to communicate with him directly, he can be reached at www.clearwellsystems.com or in his Mountain View, CA office at 650 526 0600.

www.DCIGInc.com publishes weekly interviews with legal professionals; click here for more eDiscovery interviews or sign up for the feed.