Accountants' Handbook Volume Two: Special Industries and Special Topics, Eleventh Edition

Chapter 48. INTRODUCTION TO E-DISCOVERY

Jack Moorman

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Greg Schaffer

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

COMPUTERS? NOW THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING!

At the beginning of the information age, computers were not likely targets for the interests of lawyers or courtrooms. Indeed, their use was so cumbersome that only the most complex mathematical problems were addressed via these room-sized, punch-card-reading behemoths. These machines "crunched numbers" and were not particularly useful for anything else. Needless to say, the integration of computers into society has come a very long way. While visionaries and science fiction writers continue to imagine a world in which computers are even more intertwined with the day-to-day lives of human beings, it is evident that the business world is already utterly dependent on computers today.

Whether you support this reality (carrying cell phone, personal digital assistant, and wireless network card clipped to your belt or tucked in your purse) or eschew it (clinging to the dictation and shorthand world only recently abandoned by the rest of us), one thing is clear: There is no turning back. Although the predictions of a paperless world have never quite come to pass, the computer has changed the way society conducts its business in fundamental ways. These changes make it nearly impossible to run the world without the assistance of silicon chips, keyboards, and hard drives (or the next generation of computing technology that is likely to ...