E-discovery is the process of gathering, sorting, and preparing electronic documents for legal discovery in court cases. People who have E-discovery jobs may work in information technology (IT), legal administration, and legal review fields. These jobs range in complexity and salary, depending on the expertise required to complete the specific activity.
Email is a type of data generally considered discoverable in legal court actions. When a judge deems specific email files as discoverable, an organization is required to retrieve all historical email records related to a specific event. This requires IT subject matter experts who can pull historical data from archived data storage devices. For this reason, e-discovery jobs are available for data storage access specialist.
E-discovery jobs require a form of digital forensics. These people are required to find electronic information that is relevant to specific events. Digital forensics experts typically have a background in information technology and criminal law. They are often work in the IT security groups of a company.
The legal administrator is one of the most important e-discovery jobs. This person reviews, sorts, and redacts the information pulled by the e-discovery software. The legal administrator typically has a law degree and is required to determine the validity of each item retrieved by the data storage specialist.
E-discovery applications run on special hardware that is maintained by software engineers. This team monitors the application and ensures that it works properly. Workers in several types of IT e-discovery jobs are required to manage and maintain this type of application.
As with any software tool there are also sales jobs within the area of e-discovery. These workers sell e-discovery software tools and products to organizations. Most e-discovery salesmen have a background in communication with a deep understanding of this specialized technology.
E-discovery can also be used as a tool to monitor the trends and vulnerabilities of the company's finances. People in these jobs audit and review the company's internal funds. These people are able to detect fraudulent activity by reviewing abnormalities within in the finances of an organization.
This type of application requires special skills in investigation and redaction, which typically requires specialized training classes. Training specialists teach companies how to use the application. These people typically train small groups within the company, who can then teach the remaining legal administrators.