E-Discovery Basics: How a Legal Hold Becomes a Production Set

E-discovery is the process of finding, preserving, and handing over electronically stored information, or ESI, in a lawsuit. In federal court, the frame comes from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Rules 26 and 37 set the duty to preserve and the scope of what changes hands. The work runs from legal hold to production set, and the EDRM model maps the stages. Each stage has its own job: identify data, preserve it, collect it, process it, review it, and produce it. Skipping a stage is costly. Under Rule 37(e), lost data that should have been kept can bring curative court orders, and worse if a court finds intent. This connects to our earlier piece, How Technology-Assisted Review Actually Works — and What Rule 26 and Rule 502 Require Before You Deploy It. When does the duty to preserve data start? The duty starts when litigation is on the horizon. Rule 37(e) covers ESI that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation.

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