Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out

The joy of legal discovery

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

Discovery actions for email systems first began in the mid-1980s. At that time messages were recovered from backup tapes and printed for lawyers to review. The process was dreadfully ...