Metadata Can Be A Treasure Trove In Litigation

The amount and detail of information contained in metadata (data about data embedded in files) is staggering, and it can be crucial in a court case. Metadata can reveal, for example, who worked on a document and when, what changes they made, and in some cases even where they were working. But in order to take full advantage of what’s available in metadata, litigators need to understand some fairly technical concepts, for example regarding such things as “filtering” and what native format files are, and why in many cases you are making a mistake if you don’t ask for them.