The Case Against Native Application Review of e-Mail

Cost conscious lawyers and clients sometimes choose to conduct pre-production review of client e-mail in a native e-mail application. They use an installed application like Microsoft Outlook or an internet e-mail program like Gmail. Their goal is to cut e-discovery costs by avoiding the data processing and data hosting fees associated with using a dedicated EDD database review tool. Unfortunately, native application review brings with it risks of spoliation and malware infection. Second and equally important, EDD review tools offer substantial advantages in review efficiency, searching, privilege review, and e-discovery process documentation. This article gives 10 reasons to use an EDD review tool instead of native application review.