Custodian Tracking System (CTS)

The need for robust tracking

The onset of litigation or a regulatory enforcement proceeding is a call to action for corporate lawyers, external counsel, and their litigation support teams. The legal discovery team often has to respond quickly to discovery demands and document actions in three buckets:

• Identifying which custodians and what data sources may contain relevant data
• Tracking which devices are available—and unavailable—for collections
• Documenting what data sources have been collected and which remain to be gathered

Deloitte’s custodian tracking system (CTS) was developed to equip discovery teams with the ability to efficiently track, document, and report on identified, collected, and processed data across the discovery workflow within a single system. It helps to enforce standard procedures and processes across legal matters in an effort to enhance defensibility and completeness.

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Defining a Records Information Management program

Track the discovery process, backward and forward

Deloitte’s proprietary CTS is a single-source repository we use when performing custodian management for a client. The system facilitates the matter-level reporting for the most common questions related to custodians tied to a given matter including the sources, devices, and collections assigned to a custodian.

Its features include:

• An integrated custodian interview module that allows for interview customization and standardization, as well as extensive capabilities for tracking custodian responses on individual matters and reporting across all related matters.
• Required data fields, custom report generation, and quality-control flags designed to enhance the accuracy of data entry and tracking.
• Critical fields—such as custodian user ID and emails, device serial numbers, and image names—which are designed to be unique data points in an effort to reduce the possibility of duplication or inaccuracies.
• A central repository for all activities related to a specific matter or custodian, enabling process executors a place to view and report out information captured at each stage of discovery.
• A highly granular window into the various aspects of discovery data, associated processes, and workflow status.

Discovery teams can use CTS to find and retrieve data from past interviews, device identifications, and collection decisions or events, nearly eliminating the need to repeat the same or similar work and offering companies the opportunity to reuse data. Through its workflow ticketing capabilities, CTS can also bring structure and resource forecasting capabilities to future collection demands.

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The Deloitte advantage

Deloitte’s CTS helps discovery teams reduce discovery costs through real-time tracking, documentation, reporting, and reuse of data. Visibility into historical activity and decision making helps discovery teams reduce redundant efforts, increase visibility into legal spend forecasting, and improve resource allocation. Ultimately, the system is designed to reinforce and enhance processes in an effort to reduce variances and increase defensibility and completeness.

CTS’s built-in validations and standardization of field values and their definitions can significantly improve data quality and integrity across all discovery modules. The system also can improve discovery team efficiency through reduction of manual processes, fewer instances of multiple teams tracking the same information, less time identifying and tracking open items, and reduced use of email to initiate processes and request updates.

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