E-Discovery and Litigation Data
Framework
ESI is the term the Federal Rules use for discoverable digital information. It encompasses email, documents, chat and collaboration messages, text messages, databases, voicemail, video, telematics and sensor output, social media, and system logs.
The rules treat ESI as discoverable on the same terms as other documents, subject to a specific limitation for sources that are not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost.
Alternative Names:
ESI
Why it Matters?
What counts as ESI expands constantly, and the sources that decide cases are increasingly the ones nobody thought to preserve: ephemeral chat, collaboration channels, telematics streams, and application data. Scoping ESI accurately at the outset is what makes preservation defensible, and underscoping it is the most common root cause of later spoliation exposure.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What counts as ESI?
What does not reasonably accessible mean?
