Compliance: EXCERPT from Microsoft® Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out

The joy of legal discovery

Legal discovery actions have been around for centuries. Over the past two decades, the focus of discovery or searches for information pertinent to a legal case has begun to shift from paper evidence to electronic evidence. This shift reflects the different manner in which organizations store data today. Filing cabinets are still stuffed with paper, but much of the correspondence companies conducted by letter, fax, and telex are now sent by email, so the focus of discovery has to accommodate both paper and electronic media.

Discovery actions for email systems first began in the mid-1980s. Messages were recovered from backup tapes and printed for lawyers to review. The process was expensive and time consuming. The only ...