Insights

Washington – February 18, 2025: Chambers and Partners has ranked 12 Crowell & Moring practice groups and 17 individual lawyers in the Chambers Global 2025 guide.

Going Back to the Basics - Custodial Interviews & Supervised Collections: Building a Defensible Foundation for eDiscovery

Despite advances in eDiscovery technology, custodial interviews and supervised collections remain essential to a defensible and efficient discovery process. This panel will explore why over-reliance on self-collections and search-term-only strategies can lead to incomplete data, increased costs, and court sanctions. Our experts will walk through best practices for conducting effective custodial interviews, identifying and preserving key data sources, and leveraging collaborative workflows that reduce risk and enhance review accuracy. Attendees will gain practical insights on integrating interviews with real-time collections, using tools like screen sharing, documenting workflows for defensibility, and addressing common client objections. Whether you're in-house, outside counsel, or a service provider, this session will help you elevate your approach to ESI identification, preservation, and collection.

This program will focus on managing the discovery of text and chat messages sent via personal and third-party messaging platforms, including the growing use of ephemeral messaging tools. We will discuss key considerations in preserving and discovering such data for litigation and investigations, including recent regulatory and caselaw updates, risks and challenges in overseeing such inquiries, and best practices for discovery, corporate compliance and planning. Given the DOJ, SEC and other agencies’ heightened scrutiny on message retention and control, the implications on cooperation credit and the increased risk of sanctions, this program will help legal and compliance professionals understand how to defensibly and efficiently manage these communications and inquiry responses.