Poll: e-discovery worries execs.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT - Survey

Almost two out of five executives fret about electronic discovery issues more than 18 months after amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing e-discovery took effect, according to a recent Deloitte Financial Advisory Services online poll.

The survey polled 520 executives from banking, securities, financial services, and technology during a Deloitte FAS webcast, "Strategic Discovery: Taking Steps to Avoid Litigation's Black Hole."

There are many more electronic data to discover in any given case than just five years ago, because most data are originated electronically on many devices, said Bruce Hartley, national practice leader for e-discovery for Deloitte FAS.

Copies of documents and information are stored on, and may need to be retrieved from, many types of devices, including memory sticks, cellular telephones, and iPods, he said.

"The number of devices makes the overall data environment much more complex,' Hartley said. "The term 'electronically stored information' is pretty broad. We've seen court opinions where it's extended to random access memory."

Hartley noted that corporate employees using e-mail as a filing system as well as for communication and documents in foreign languages, which are increasingly common as business becomes more global, also boost the intricacy of...