Saving money is great. Cutting corners is not. And that’s exactly what self-collection is: cutting corners. It’s a bad practice with potentially devastating consequences for your client.

• Time suck – Asking employees to gather this type of evidence takes time. Time that they should spend performing the duties they were hired for. Time they might not have to spare to do their jobs correctly. Plus, the more time it takes them to get around to collecting, the higher the chance that evidence has been erased or overwritten.
• They’re not experts – Expecting people who are not trained in nuances of the law should not be expected to collect materials relevant to an evolving legal case. In addition, there’s no way to keep employees impartial. They’ll want to help and omit an email or two. Or they’ll want to keep themselves out of trouble and revise a document.
• Metadata messes – As mentioned in the previous bullet, it’s easy to alter metadata – just open a file, make a minor change, and it could be considered inadmissible, or worse, deceptive or fraudulent.
• TMI (or too little) – Since they’re not trained in discovery, employees could gather information that is unnecessary – defeating the purpose of the process to reduce data overload. Or they could pass over pertinent documents, leaving crucial evidence behind.
• Judging judges – Judges are becoming more and more skeptical about self-collection because they know that most employees are not trained for the task and are incapable of efficient keyword searching in the context of eDiscovery.

Now, here’s why eDiscovery experts can make a real difference in your case:

• Sharp tools – Avalon Legal uses Relativity, a state-of-the-art eDiscovery platform that allows your litigation team to easily collaborate and review documents. LAW PreDiscovery from LexisNexis, Nuix, and X1 Social Discovery also hold a prime place in our discovery toolbelts.
• We are experts – Our team has more than 91 combined years of experience in the discovery field and have assisted in 10,100 cases and performed more than 2,500 collections. Avalon Legal was built around the very specific needs of the legal community and have the awards and recognition to prove that no one can out-service our team.
• Maintain that metadata – We always use forensic standards, techniques, and tools to document our data collection and preservation, so that information is protected from alteration and remains legally admissible and defensible.
• Like Switzerland – The eDiscovery experts at Avalon Legal are 100% neutral. Their sole duty is to collect evidence and find the truth.
• Goldilocks zone – The data we collect is “just right.” We eliminate duplication of information, ensure that searches are thorough, and securely store all e-docs in one place where they are accessible from anywhere at any time.

Eliminate the potential woes of self-collection by calling on the eDiscovery experts at Avalon. Our certified professionals will efficiently and effectively collect data – either onsite or remotely – from your clients’ computer files, webmail, enterprise systems, social media networks, and more using advanced encryption to maintain a fully defensible chain of custody. Finally, our collection process will be completed quickly and economically (we offer a low, flat fee per custodian), allowing you to focus on other aspects of your case.

SOURCES:

https://www.doelegal.com/2018/08/self-collection-minefields-a-guide-to-avoiding-them-during-litigations/

https://www.xactdatadiscovery.com/articles/self-collection-and-its-risks/

https://www.eidebailly.com/insights/articles/2017/12/ediscovery-knowing-the-limits

https://insights.conduent.com/conduent-blog/how-dangerous-is-self-collection-in-e-discovery

https://technology.findlaw.com/electronic-discovery/self-collection-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.html