Sherpa Software, an information governance solutions provider inBridgeville, Pa., announced an eDiscovery module addition to itsAltitude IG solution, which allows in-house teams to manage legalhold notification, search and collection for legal discoveryrequests, compliance requirements or inside investigations.

Electronic discovery is the process of identifying, collectingand producing electronically stored information regarding litigation requests. Electronically stored informationincludes, but is not limited to, emails, documents, presentations,databases, voicemail, audio and video files, social media accountsand websites.

“Leveraging your internal resources to shrink the number ofpotentially responsive items significantly decreases costs, thenumber of outside counsel consulting hours needed, and minimizesthe per-gigabyte hosting fees imposed by many review platforms,”Kevin Ogrodnik, president of Sherpa Software, said.

Sherpa Altitude IG is an on-demand platform designed to provideorganizations with a comprehensive information governance solution.This platform features a hosted back-end, which offersadministrative access and enforcement for corporate data to remainin place. In addition to eDiscovery, Altitude IG offers datareporting and analytics, and policy enforcement modules designed tolocate, identify, catalog and manage corporate electronic data.

According to Sherpa Software, Altitude IG eDiscovery can locatecontent, apply a set of comprehensive search criteria and create aresult set. Searches can be scheduled or on-demand, and featuresinclude cross-matter custodian management, legal hold notificationsand federated searches across multiple data silos. Searches can usekeywords, phrases and patterns of text for all content, includingemails and password-protected PDF files.

Nancy Flynn, founder/executive director of the ePolicyInstitute, suggested in a white paper that social media content,just like email messages and attachments, create electronicbusiness records that can put financial institutions in jeopardy ofgovernment and industry regulatory investigations or federal andstate lawsuits. Magnifying the potential risks for credit union arethe many rules and regulations stemming from governance by the NCUA, theSarbanes Oxley Act, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, orthe Securities and Exchange Commission. Flynn wrote, “Anyemployee-generated content—whether written and posted at the officeduring work hours or at home after hours—has the potential tocreate an electronic business record that must be preserved,protected and produced in the event of a subpoena.”

Ediscoveryblog.com also warned that organizations that areheavily regulated and litigated face increasingly significant risksattached to the manner in which electronic information is managedand stored.