Category Archives: collection

December 13, 2023 · 12:02 PM

X1 Expands Cutting Edge MS 365 Support With Very High and Unmatched Throughput Capabilities

By John Patzakis

Earlier this year, X1 launched MS 365 data connectors to our X1 Enterprise Collect platform to provide a previously unmet critical need for enterprises to conduct cost-efficient yet highly scalable eDiscovery search and collections of MS 365 data. The response has been tremendous, with X1 seeing record demand. This is because X1 Enterprise Collect provides users the unique ability to search and collect MS 365 data in-place, in a targeted and iterative manner, at speeds and throughput far exceeding other tools, including Microsoft Purview Premium.

And now, X1 has released X1 Enterprise Collect 5.1, which features two major advancements:

  1. Full support for modern attachments in MS Mail to go along with our support for modern attachments in Teams. X1 is the only solution we and our partners are aware of that supports the search and collection of modern attachments in MS 365 without the need for a Premium (E5) license.
  2. Even greater speed and scalability. X1 Enterprise Collect does not operate by simply making bulk calls to the MS Graph API, like most eDiscovery tools, which also require a premium license to collect the key data such as modern attachments. X1 employs a targeted, custodian-based approach that minimizes 365 API calls, and does not rely on the MS Search Index, which has been demonstrated to be untrustworthy and with limited throughput. X1’s approach enables a very scalable, defensible, and robust data collection now at speeds 10x that of other approaches.

Many customers report to us that Microsoft Purview Premium’s documented inability to timely handle anything other than small matters due to their 2GB per hour throughput limit (which X1 is not subject to due to our direct connection approach) is disqualifying for them. eDiscovery and investigation matters need to be addressed expediently. X1 can address a matter involving 100 custodians at 10GB of MS 365 data each within 24 hours (search, collection and export), while Microsoft Purview Premium, per Microsoft’s own documentation, would take up to several weeks.

In addition to the aforementioned enhancements with version 5.1, X1 Enterprise Collect offers the following additional unique benefits unmatched by other independent software providers:
• The ability to target individual custodians and specific messaging threads, displacing any need to mass download channels in Teams or Mail
• Unified search and collection of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Mail, laptops and file-shares for an optimized approach
• X1’s patented technology enables the indexing, searching and processing of the targeted data in-place, removing any reliance on premium processing or supplemental services
• One-click upload into Relativity for review, for a streamlined end-to-end process
• A truly automated product solution, as opposed to a service-based offering

Winston & Strawn eDiscovery partner Bobby Malhotra notes: “With the vast number of users and unyielding amount of data in collaboration applications such as Teams, having the ability to target and triage data by specific custodians and threads allows organizations to handle discovery in an efficient and pragmatic manner. X1 provides the unique ability to seamlessly collect and search across numerous data sources.”

X1 Enterprise Collect version 5.1 is now available for deployment in the cloud, on-premise, or on-demand. For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Authentication, Best Practices, Cloud Data, collection, Corporations, Data Audit, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, Information Access, Information Management, MS Teams, OneDrive, Preservation & Collection, proportionality, Relativity, SharePoint, SharePoint content

May 16, 2023 · 10:54 AM

X1 Delivers Cutting-Edge MS Teams Support

By John Patzakis

The prominence of Microsoft 365 data sources continue to grow in eDiscovery matters exponentially. However, most non-MS eDiscovery tools collect from MS 365 by simply making bulk copies of data associated with individual accounts, and then attempt to transfer that data en masse to their own proprietary processing and/or review platform. Such an effort is very costly, time-consuming, and inefficient for many reasons. For one, this bulk transfer triggers data transfer throttling by Microsoft, causing significant time delays. But the main problem is that clients who are investing in MS 365 do not want to see all their data routinely exported out of its native environment every time there is an eDiscovery or compliance investigation.

So, enterprises with relevant data stored in MS 365 need to have a good process to perform unified and efficient search and collection of MS 365 and non-MS 365 sources. To achieve requisite efficiency and the minimization of data transfer, this process should be based upon a targeted search and collection in-place capability, and not simply involve mass export of data out of MS 365 for downstream processing and searching.

To answer this unmet critical need, X1 launched MS 365 data connectors to our X1 Enterprise Collect platform. X1 Enterprise Collect provides users the unique ability to search and collect MS 365 data in-place. X1’s optimized approach of iterative search and targeted collection enables organizations to apply proportionality principles across both cloud and on-premise data sources with clear and consistent results for effective eDiscovery.

And now, X1 has added cutting-edge Teams support to complete our existing support of OneDrive, MS Mail and SharePoint. The X1 Enterprise Collect Teams collection capabilities include the following unique benefits unmatched by other independent software providers:
• The ability to target individual custodians and specific messaging threads, displacing any need to mass download channels
• Unified search and collection of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Mail, laptops and file-shares for an optimized approach
• Patented index, search and process the data in-place, removes any reliance on premium processing or supplemental services
• One-click upload into Relativity for review, for a streamlined end-to-end process
• A truly automated product solution, as opposed to a service-based offering

Winston & Strawn eDiscovery partner Bobby Malhotra notes: “With the vast number of users and unyielding amount of data in collaboration applications such as Teams, having the ability to target and triage data by specific custodians and threads allows organizations to handle discovery in an efficient and pragmatic manner. X1 provides the unique ability to seamlessly collect and search across numerous web, collaboration, and social, data sources.”

Watch the X1 hosted webinar on-demand featuring the hot topic of Best Practices to Collect from MS Teams in an Effective, Defensible and Proportional Manner.

The X1 Enterprise Collect Platform is available now from X1 and its global channel network in the cloud, on-premise, and with our services available on-demand. For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Authentication, Best Practices, Cloud Data, collection, compliance, Corporations, Data Audit, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, law firm, MS Teams, OneDrive, proportionality, SharePoint

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April 24, 2023 · 3:56 PM

X1 Introduces Cutting-Edge Instagram Support with X1 Social Discovery Version 7

By Larry Gill

Since I joined the X1 team last year as CEO, I have made it my priority to double down on our support and expansion of our X1 Social Discovery solution. To that end, I am excited to announce that we have just launched version 7 of X1 Social Discovery, social media and web collections solution, which includes a new cutting-edge Instagram connector, along with our revamped Facebook support, where all our users now have native post-level collection and parsing to ensure accuracy, key metadata collection, court authentication, and evidentiary completeness of the collected data. Nothing short of those capabilities is acceptable and that is why I can confidently say that X1 Social Discovery is the only solution in the industry capable of delivering all those requirements.

Over the past year, I have spoken to many of our customers and prospects about what they need to support their social media eDiscovery collections and investigations. One thing that became clear: post-level native file collection for social media evidence, including Instagram, is essential.

Other tools simply provide bulk flat file screen shots of social media feeds, and are of very limited value, as they merely provide a screenshot PDF image file without searchable text or metadata, other than what is visible on the image itself. This does not meet the needs of attorneys and paralegals seeking to leverage and admit key social media and website evidence into their cases. For this reason, X1 has put in the work and R&D investment, and, as CEO, I am committed to doing so on an ongoing basis, so that our users would have native post-level collection and parsing as required.

X1 Social Discovery is the only solution to provide native file, post-level Instagram support, and in a manner that is fast and scalable. This enables the following top 5 key benefits for Instagram collections:

  1. Fast and Automated Instagram Feed Capture. X1 Social Discovery v7 captures hundreds of Instagram posts with assorted comments per hour. We have successfully captured several thousand posts in our testing, including individual posts that have hundreds of associated comments and replies. This level of performance is simply impossible with “web plug in” tools.
  2. Post-Level Collection, Filtering and Production. The ability to search, tag, sort, authenticate (with their own hash value), and produce individual Instagram posts with X1 is essential for an efficient and effective workflow. Other tools require “all or nothing” production & hash of the flat PDF output.
  3. Federated Search and Review. With X1, multiple Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and web page collections can now be searched, sorted, and reviewed in a unified manner. No other tools on the market have an integrated review capability.
  4. Robust Post-Level Metadata Capture. X1 Captures over a dozen unique item-level metadata fields for an individual Instagram post. Other tools only record general URLs of the bulk collection, a hash of the entire “all or nothing” bulk PDF export containing up to hundreds of individual posts, with no individual hash values or metadata fields specific to any of those posts.
  5. Deep Integration with Relativity for Review. X1 custom-developed a Relativity .RAP file that enables social media data (now including Instagram) to be displayed natively – at the post-level — in full context in Relativity, the same as it appears in X1 Social Discovery. All metadata is overlayed, and the comments are kept in line and in context. Importantly, each Instagram post collected by X1 is treated as an individual record in Relativity, instead of the bulk export from other tools being a single record. This enables efficient review as well as robust data analytics of social media evidence in Relativity.

To see all these exciting new features in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

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Filed under collection, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, Information Governance, Information Management, Legal Ethics & Social Media, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

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August 23, 2022 · 10:36 AM

Proportionality Focus Presents Challenges and Opportunities for eDiscovery Service Providers

By John Patzakis

Proportionality is now the hottest legal issue involving eDiscovery, with the largest number of eDiscovery-related cases in the past year addressing the subject. Relativity eDiscovery attorney David Horrigan recently led an informative webinar “Data Discovery 2022 Mid-Year Update” (access recording here) reporting that 642 published court decisions tackled legal considerations involving proportionality in discovery in the first half of 2022. As only a very small number of cases involve a published decision that we can access online, it is safe to assume that several thousand more cases litigated the proportionality issue during this time period.

Proportionality-based eDiscovery is a goal that all judges and corporate attorneys want to attain. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), parties may discover any non-privileged material that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. Lawyers that take full advantage of the proportionality rule can greatly reduce cost, time and risk associated with otherwise inefficient eDiscovery.

While there is keen awareness of proportionality in the legal community, attaining the benefits requires the ability to operationalize workflows as far upstream in the eDiscovery process as possible. For instance, when you’re engaging in data over-collection, which in turn runs up of a lot of human time and processing costs, the ship has largely sailed before you are able to perform early case assessments and data relevancy analysis, as much of the discovery costs have already been incurred at that point. The case law and the Federal Rules provide that the duty to preserve only applies to potentially relevant information, but unless you have the right operational processes in place, you’re losing out on the ability to attain the benefits of proportionality.

An example of a process that effectively applies proportionality on an operational basis would be an iterative exercise to identify relevant custodians, their data sources, applicable data ranges, file types and agreed upon keywords, following the process outlined in McMaster v. Kohl’s Dep’t Stores, Inc., No. 18-13875 (E.D. Mich. July 24, 2020), and Raine Group v. Reign Capital, (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2022), and collect only the data that is responsive to such specific criterion. Both McMaster and Raine Group decisions apply proportionality at the point of identification and collection, not just production. The latest enterprise collection tech from Relativity and X1 enable such detailed and proportional criteria to be applied in-place, at the point of collection. This reduces the data volume funnel by as much as 98 percent from over-collection models, yet with increased transparency and compliance. In other words, a collection process that is targeted, automated and proportional, instead of one that is overbroad and manual.

However, traditional eDiscovery services typically involve manual collection, followed by manual on-premise hardware-based processing, and finally manual upload to review. These inefficiencies extend projects by often weeks while dramatically increasing cost and risk with purposeful data over-collection and many manual data handoffs. However, the first half of the EDRM involving collection and processing are now far more automated than they were even a few years ago. The purchasers of eDiscovery services and software have clearly noticed and are demanding adaptation from vendors, especially service providers. This new normal of proportionality focus presents a very significant challenge to many service providers.

So how can services firms adapt to this new paradigm? Here are few strategies:

First, services firms should move upstream to focus on information governance to reduce the data funnel as soon as possible. The new generation of eDiscovery technology in the areas of collection, identification, analytics and early data assessment, enables enterprises to operationalize proportionality principles. However, this ideally involves high-end strategic consulting to bring these processes together and operationalize them. This also enables services firms to develop direct and ongoing relationships with corporate law departments, IT and other key corporate stakeholders.

Second, service providers should pivot to managed services (like most other IT consultants) instead of a reactive project-based mindset. Fire drill eDiscovery projects by definition lack any process and result in data-overcollection and many other inefficiencies that thwart the realization of proportionality principles. Establishing a managed service relationship “bakes in” the service provider into an established eDiscovery workflow, including information governance, pre-collection analytics, targeted collection and integrated processing and hosting to enable far more proportional eDiscovery efforts, across multiple matters per client.

Third, services firms should find ways to develop or otherwise acquire their own differentiating tech or establish meaningful partnerships with tech platform providers. These partnerships should entail more than merely using the software, but the development of proprietary workflows or even technical integrations that enable unique service offerings that operationalize proportionality.

At the end of the day, eDiscovery is a technical process that is subject to technology disruption just like any other technology-based services industry. eDiscovery services firms that not only adapt to but embrace this change as a strategic opportunity will be the ones who prosper the most.

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Filed under Best Practices, collection, ECA, eDiscovery, Enterprise eDiscovery, Preservation & Collection, proportionality, Relativity

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June 28, 2022 · 1:39 PM

Relativity and X1 Publish Updated Joint Legal Whitepaper on ESI Collection Best Practices

By John Patzakis

Relativity and X1 have published an updated joint legal whitepaper addressing full-disk imaging as a disfavored collection practice in civil litigation, with Relativity eDiscovery attorney David Horrigan as the lead author. This paper is a substantive update from the original published a year ago, adding discussion of important and relevant new case law published in the past 12 months. The paper notes that “if the preliminary data from the first five months of 2022 are any indication, we may be seeing that the law of proportionality is becoming more settled — and that courts continue to disfavor full-disk imaging.”

The paper delves into all the legal reasons, including detailed analysis of case law, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Sedona Principles establishing why forensic collection is not required in civil litigation. The paper primarily focuses on the principles of proportionality in its legal analysis as well as case law issued prior to the 2015 amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which gave greater prominence and clarification of the proportionality rules.

One of the recent updated cases included is Besman v. Stafford, where the appellate court reversed and remanded a trial court’s order of a forensic examination of a law firm computer, holding the trial court erred in failing to take precautions to protect the privileged and confidential information on the device. “Generally, courts are reluctant to compel forensic imaging, largely due to the risk that imaging will improperly expose privileged and confidential material contained on the hard drive,” Judge Anita Laster Mays wrote for the appellate court.

This is an important topic as a key problem in eDiscovery that drives inefficiencies and higher costs is that default collection methods often involve full-disk imaging—a forensic examination of an entire computer—when searching for responsive data. As the whitepaper notes, “it turns out full-disk imaging is not required for most eDiscovery collections. In fact, courts often disfavor the practice.”

A copy of the whitepaper can be found here.

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Filed under Best Practices, Case Law, collection, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, proportionality, Relativity