The Challenge of Linked Content for E-Discovery

The way people collaborate and share projects at work has been transformed by productivity suites like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. However, the dynamic, cloud-based platforms pose challenges to the way Legal Ops works with e-discovery — how electronic information is collected, processed, analyzed, reviewed, and produced, according to an article by FTI Technology.

One of these challenges is the shift from traditional attachments to linked content. The intent of the individual who sends the link and how the recipient responds is not always clear. The recipient might respond within the link rather than to the message itself. Also, there may be numerous variations of the linked files, so it’s difficult to determine which version is relevant to a matter. Shared links may also represent an entire folder, and every item in the folder could be in scope for collection and review.

Links also present a significant preservation challenge as they may only remain active for a certain time period. On the review side, Technology-assisted review (TAR) workflows are not equipped to work with linked content, and review platforms don’t have built-in tools to draw parallels between a collected message and a hyperlinked piece of content.

Because of these technical challenges, there’s a risk that in-house legal teams could make incorrect collection, processing, review, and production decisions.  Investing in expertise and workflows to address these issues will be critical when handling e-discovery matters involving linked content or other forms of emerging data.