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Allison Brecher, Marsh & McLennan Co. Hilary Lane, NBC Cheryl Strom, McDonalds Bruce Whitney, Air Products Dominic Jaar, Bell Canada Identifying Risk Areas Developing a Solution “Selling” it to Management

Litigation Readiness

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Page 1: Litigation Readiness

Allison Brecher, Marsh & McLennan Co.Hilary Lane, NBCCheryl Strom, McDonaldsBruce Whitney, Air ProductsDominic Jaar, Bell Canada

Identifying Risk Areas Developing a Solution “Selling” it to Management

Page 2: Litigation Readiness

Telecommunications – Dominic JaarFood Services – Cheryl StromMedia/Entertainment – Hilary LaneFinancial Services – Allison BrecherIndustrial – Bruce Whitney

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Need for Uniformity and Cost-effective Solution to

E-Discovery

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Built a custom solution to manage legal holds and document preservation Created a short webinar for outside counsel describing our systems and capabilitiesPreparing web-based training for employees involved in a legal hold

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Emphasize cost savings, both on outside counsel spend and reducing riskEvaluated products on the market and assessed cost of and time involved in building a custom solutionThe e-discovery rules will likely catch on outside the US…better to be prepared now

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Cost control in a new environment

E-discovery is still at its early stage in CanadaHigher management sees it as an extraordinary situation where they would rather spend the money on a case by case basis rather than invest in education, processes and toolsMeanwhile, the legal department’s budget is not increased while the expenses relating to e-discovery soar

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Benchmark peer companiesCreated a Steering CommitteeEducate each other and management about e-discoveryHandle legal hold notices and prioritize technology investments

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Compliance with Legal Hold PolicyGetting employees to understand their responsibilitiesMaking the process easier for in-house counsel

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Employee training and certificationCurrently testing various solutions to more easily search for relevant ESI

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Improving communications while promoting e-discovery

awareness and enhancing technology capabilities

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Established working group of litigators and IT personnel to collect documents, monitor/prioritize, consider best practices Hire IT personnel dedicated to e-discoveryNew software

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Starting from scratch

Sweeping changes in e-discovery obligations required:

creation of uniform procedures major technology investments

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Purchased two software products to classify records on a company-wide basis and implement legal hold noticesCurrently developing e-discovery extranetConsidering selection of single firm to handle e-discovery issues

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Many employees join company via acquisitionNeeded to develop cohesive and uniform records management strategy

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Developing internal website based on Sharepoint with access given to records managersWebsite used to

maintain and revise records retention policiesfacilitate communication among different subsidiaries identify confidential data

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Explosion of the volume of e-docs transformed litigators in records collectors and analystsLitigators spent a great deal of time

dealing with IS/IT understanding the infrastructure interviewing custodians

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Developed a clear process to handle e-discovery by delegating different tasks to IS/IT, RM, security, etc. Put in place a semi-automated litigation hold procedure supported by interview forms

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Legal Searches for Electronic InformationNeeded a way to search and preserve electronic information

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Identified and evaluated various e-discovery solutions that would enable paralegals/attorneys to search electronic information across all repositories (including web-content) and preserve potentially relevant informationParalegals/attorneys would be able to cull out potentially relevant information before exporting to outside counsel for additional review