An adverse inference instruction tells the jury it may or must presume that lost evidence would have been unfavorable to the party that failed to preserve it.

An audit trail is the automatically generated record of system activity, establishing who did what and when.

Auto-delete suspension halts automated deletion in systems that would otherwise purge data subject to a legal hold.

Backup tapes are sequential storage media created for disaster recovery, historically the archetype of not reasonably accessible data.

Bates numbering is the sequential identifier applied to each produced page or document, providing a unique reference used for citation throughout a case.

BYOD discovery addresses obtaining business data from employee-owned devices used for work.

A categorical privilege log describes withheld documents by category rather than individually, reducing the cost of logging large volumes.

Chain of custody for electronic evidence documents every transfer and handling step from collection through production.

A clawback agreement lets a producing party retrieve inadvertently disclosed privileged documents without the disclosure operating as a waiver.

Cloud data discovery addresses collection from third-party hosted services where the data is not on organizational systems.

Collaboration platform discovery is the preservation, collection, and review of messages from workplace tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams.

A confidentiality endorsement is the designation applied to produced documents marking them subject to protective order restrictions.

Continuous active learning is a technology-assisted review workflow in which the model retrains constantly as reviewers code, continually surfacing the...

Cost per gigabyte is the standard unit for pricing e-discovery processing and hosting, and the basis for budget projection.

Culling reduces a collection before review by applying filters for date range, file type, custodian, and search terms.

Curative measures are the lesser sanctions available for ESI loss where prejudice exists but intent to deprive does not.

A custodian interview identifies what relevant data a person holds, where it resides, and how they use their systems.

A data map documents an organization's information systems, what data each holds, where it resides, and who controls it.

Data volume estimation projects how much data a matter will involve, supporting budgeting and proportionality arguments.

Database discovery involves obtaining information from relational database systems, typically through queries or structured exports.

Date filtering restricts a collection to a relevant time period, removing documents outside the range from review.

Deduplication removes identical copies of files from a review set, typically by comparing hash values.

A defensible process is an e-discovery workflow that is reasonable, documented, and proportional, so it can withstand challenge even if some information...

DeNISTing removes known system and application files from a collection using the National Software Reference Library list.

Discovery cost shifting requires the requesting party to bear some production expense where the burden is disproportionate.

Document review is the examination of collected documents for responsiveness, privilege, and issues, and it is the single largest cost in electronic...

The duty to preserve is the obligation to retain potentially relevant evidence once litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated.

An e-discovery vendor provides collection, processing, hosting, and review services supporting electronic discovery.

The EDRM is the standard conceptual framework describing the stages of electronic discovery from information governance through presentation.

Electronic discovery is the process of identifying, preserving, collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information in litigation.

Electronically stored information is any information created, stored, or communicated in digital form that is subject to discovery in litigation.

Email threading groups related messages into conversations, allowing review of the most inclusive message rather than every reply.

Ephemeral messaging refers to applications that automatically delete messages after a set period, creating preservation and spoliation risk.

An ESI protocol is the parties' negotiated agreement governing how electronic discovery will be conducted, covering sources, search, format, metadata, and...

Exception handling addresses files that failed processing, such as encrypted, corrupt, or unsupported formats.

Extracted text is the machine-readable content pulled from a document during processing, enabling search and analysis.

First-pass review is the initial examination of documents for responsiveness and privilege, typically the highest-volume review stage.

Forensic collection captures data using methods that preserve metadata and create a verifiable copy of the source.

Global deduplication suppresses duplicates across all custodians rather than within each custodian separately.

A hash value is a fixed-length string computed from a file's contents, functioning as a digital fingerprint for identification and verification.

A hold acknowledgment is a custodian's confirmation that they received, read, and understand a litigation hold notice.

A hold release lifts preservation obligations when a matter concludes, allowing normal retention practices to resume.

Information governance is the organizational program managing how data is created, retained, secured, and disposed of across its lifecycle.

Intent to deprive is the finding required for the most severe spoliation sanctions, that a party destroyed evidence to prevent its use.

IoT device data is information generated by connected sensors and devices, an emerging source of objective evidence.

Issue coding assigns documents to case-specific categories during review, enabling later retrieval by subject rather than keyword.

Legacy system data resides in decommissioned or obsolete platforms requiring specialized effort to access.

A legal hold is a directive suspending routine data deletion so that potentially relevant information is preserved once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

A litigation hold notice is the written instruction to custodians directing them to preserve information relevant to anticipated or pending litigation.

A load file accompanies a production, carrying metadata, document boundaries, and file paths so the receiving party can import it.

Managed review is document review conducted by a vendor-supplied team under defined protocols and quality metrics.

Metadata is the information describing a file's creation, modification, authorship, and system properties, which is discoverable and often decisive evidence.

Microsoft Teams discovery addresses collection from a platform whose data is distributed across multiple underlying Microsoft services.

Mobile device discovery is the preservation and collection of text messages, application data, and other content from phones and tablets for litigation.

Native file production delivers documents in their original file format, preserving formulas, metadata, and embedded content.

Near-duplicate detection identifies documents that are substantially but not exactly similar, such as draft versions of the same agreement.

Not reasonably accessible data is electronically stored information a party need not produce absent good cause because of undue burden or cost.

Optical character recognition converts scanned images into searchable text, making paper-origin documents usable in review and analysis.

Preservation scope defines which custodians, systems, data types, and date ranges must be retained under a legal hold.

A privilege log is the itemized list describing documents withheld from production on privilege grounds, with enough detail for others to assess the claim.

Processing converts collected data into reviewable form, extracting text and metadata and applying deduplication and filtering.

Production is the delivery of responsive documents to the requesting party in the agreed format with required metadata.

Production format specifies how documents are delivered, including image or native form, metadata fields, and load file structure.

A production log records what was produced, when, in what volumes, and under what Bates ranges across the life of a matter.

Proportionality analysis for ESI weighs the burden and cost of electronic discovery against its likely benefit to the case.

Quality control sampling examines a subset of coded documents to measure reviewer accuracy and consistency.

A redaction log identifies documents containing redactions and states the basis for each, allowing the receiving party to assess them.

Responsiveness is whether a document falls within the scope of a discovery request and must therefore be produced.

A review platform is the software environment where documents are hosted, searched, coded, and prepared for production.

Reviewer overturn rate measures how often second-level review changes a first-pass determination, indicating review accuracy.

Rolling productions deliver responsive documents in successive volumes rather than a single complete production.

The Rule 26(f) conference is the early meeting where parties plan discovery, including how electronically stored information will be handled.

Rule 37(e) is the federal rule governing sanctions for lost electronically stored information, reserving the harshest remedies for a party that acted with...

Elusion testing samples documents excluded from review to estimate how much responsive material the process missed.

Search term negotiation is the process by which parties agree on the keywords used to identify potentially responsive documents.

Search term validation tests whether agreed terms actually retrieve responsive documents and how much they miss.

Second-level review re-examines documents flagged during first-pass for privilege, significance, or coding difficulty.

Self-collection risk is the exposure created when custodians gather their own documents without supervision or forensic methods.

Slack discovery addresses the preservation, collection, and review of messages in the Slack collaboration platform.

A slip sheet is a placeholder page inserted in a production standing in for a native file or withheld document.

Social media discovery addresses obtaining posts, messages, and activity from platforms, subject to statutory and privacy constraints.

Spoliation is the loss, destruction, or material alteration of evidence a party had a duty to preserve, exposing that party to sanctions.

Structured data discovery addresses information held in databases and applications rather than in discrete documents.

Targeted collection gathers only data meeting defined criteria rather than imaging entire devices or accounts.

Technology-assisted review uses machine learning to prioritize or classify documents for responsiveness, reducing the volume requiring manual attorney review.

Telematics data is vehicle-generated information on location, speed, and operation, increasingly central in transportation litigation.

Text message discovery addresses the preservation and collection of SMS and messaging application content from mobile devices.

TIFF production delivers documents as static images with accompanying text and metadata load files.

The trigger date is when the duty to preserve attaches, marking the point after which evidence destruction becomes sanctionable.

Two-tier discovery distinguishes reasonably accessible sources that must be searched from inaccessible sources requiring good cause.

Video and audio discovery addresses collection and review of recorded media, which resists text-based search and review workflows.

Wearable device data records activity, heart rate, sleep, and location, and is increasingly sought in injury litigation.