Using Relativity As an Information Governance Application

The process is extremely familiar. A company is sued or is the subject of a government investigation. As part of this action, the party bringing suit or the government makes demands for electronic information from the defendant. The defendant engages an e-discovery vendor to identify, preserve, collect, process, review and produce all non-privileged and relevant documents. The e-discovery vendor utilizes Relativity to complete this step-by-step process that mirrors the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

Using Relativity to gather, review and produce documents in response to discovery requests has historically been its core use. However, there are a number of other ways in which Relativity can, and has, been leveraged to help companies and law firms achieve goals that do not have anything to do with litigation at all. At its core, Relativity is a well-organized and customizable relational database based on Microsoft SQL. Its functionality can be leveraged to complete almost any task that any other relational database could. Some examples of non-traditional ways in which Relativity has been used include: using it as a data entry tool for corporate or other important documents; as an evidence tracking repository; to abstract contracts; and to manage litigation holds. However, one of the most effective ways in which Relativity can be creatively used by competent operators is as an Information Governance (IG) application. This sounds out of place at first, but is entirely possible and achievable with creative thinking, sound organization, thoughtful processes, and skilled Relativity administrators.