PROACTIVELY DETERMINING POTENTIAL EVIDENCE ISSUES FOR CUSTODIAL SYSTEMS IN ACTIVE LITIGATION
First Claim
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1. A computer implemented method for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising the steps of:
- creating a record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters;
providing a workflow that detects actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map;
coupling said record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters with said workflow; and
notifying appropriate parties of said actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters is coupled with a workflow that detects actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in the enterprise map, and that notifies the appropriate parties so the information is preserved.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A computer implemented method for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising the steps of:
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creating a record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters; providing a workflow that detects actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map; coupling said record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters with said workflow; and notifying appropriate parties of said actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A computer implemented method for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising the steps of:
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providing a legal communications and collections (LCC) application, said LCC providing a mechanism for allowing attorneys, paralegals, and other LCC users to identify custodial systems involved and affected by legal matters, as well as a list of employees involved due to their association with an affected custodial system; storing said list per legal matter, said list comprising any of; systems associated with departments involved in a matter; global systems; custodial systems mapped to information types relevant to a matter; any other system intersecting a matter; IT staff responsible for managing data or information repositories; and records management staff responsible for information record keeping; storing additional information about a matter, comprising any of an attorney, paralegal, and matter status (Active, Closed); communicating, signaling, queuing, tagging, or otherwise indicating modifications in an appropriate system as custodial system attributes, status, or mapping associations change or are expected to change; providing a change event that signals any of the following information for one or more custodial systems; expected or actual status change indicating that a system is to be taken off line; changes in relationships between custodial systems; enterprise map changes that cause data migration; and employee status or role assignment changes affecting custodial systems; communicating custodial system change events to said LCC application, said events minimally comprising an ID or other unique identifier indicating which custodial system is affected, and optionally comprising any of an expected or actual end date of operation, which may be past or future, if known; and
other custodial system information, including associations with other entities in an enterprise map;based upon said change events, said LCC application performing any of the following functions; notifying appropriate parties of said event so that action can be taken to preserve information, wherein for each legal matter that is currently Active, a list of involved and affected custodial systems for a system indicated in said event is searched, and wherein if a system is found in a matter, then; notifying (alerting) one or more individuals selected from among an Attorney, a Paralegel and other appropriate individuals on one or more notification lists; sending a legal notice to appropriate staff associated with a custodial system informing them of preservation obligations regarding said system; and if a legal notice was sent, recording said legal notice, date of transmission, and all notice recipients in said LCC application to create an audit trail; triggering workflow processes to manage collection and processing, providing instructions, assignment, tracking of timely task completion, and exception handling for errors or incomplete tasks; said LCC application creating workflow items to track status of information preservation, to prompt relevant employees to confirm and validate that actions have been taken, and to handle exceptions when this is not done in a timely manner; providing search and reporting tools in connection with a list of all matters involving a custodial system, including status of information that may have been or may need to be collected/preserved.
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6. A computer implemented method for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising the steps of:
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providing a legal communications and collections (LCC) application, said LCC providing a mechanism for allowing attorneys, paralegals, and other LCC users to identify custodial systems involved and affected by legal matters, as well as a list of employees involved due to their association with an affected custodial system; communicating, signaling, queuing, tagging, or otherwise indicating modifications in an appropriate system as custodial system attributes, status, or mapping associations change or are expected to change; and communicating custodial system change events to said LCC application, said events minimally comprising an ID or other unique identifier indicating which custodial system is affected. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. An apparatus for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising:
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means for creating a record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters; a workflow that detects actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map; means for coupling said record of custodial systems'"'"' involvement in legal matters with said workflow; and means for notifying appropriate parties of said actual or planned changes affecting custodial systems themselves and/or their associations with other entities in an enterprise map. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19)
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20. An apparatus for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising:
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a legal communications and collections (LCC) application, said LCC providing a mechanism for allowing attorneys, paralegals, and other LCC users to identify custodial systems involved and affected by legal matters, as well as a list of employees involved due to their association with an affected custodial system; a memory for storing said list per legal matter, said list comprising any of; systems associated with departments involved in a matter; global systems; custodial systems mapped to information types relevant to a matter; any other system intersecting a matter; IT staff responsible for managing data or information repositories; and records management staff responsible for information record keeping; a memory for storing additional information about a matter, comprising any of an attorney, paralegal, and matter status (Active, Closed); means for communicating, signaling, queuing, tagging, or otherwise indicating modifications in an appropriate system as custodial system attributes, status, or mapping associations change or are expected to change; means for providing a change event that signals any of the following information for one or more custodial systems; expected or actual status change indicating that a system is to be taken off line; changes in relationships between custodial systems; enterprise map changes that cause data migration; and employee status or role assignment changes affecting custodial systems; means for communicating custodial system change events to said LCC application, said events minimally comprising an ID or other unique identifier indicating which custodial system is affected, and optionally comprising any of an expected or actual end date of operation, which may be past or future, if known; and other custodial system information, including associations with other entities in an enterprise map; based upon said change events, said LCC application executing computer code for performing any of the following functions; notifying appropriate parties of said event so that action can be taken to preserve information, wherein for each legal matter that is currently Active, a list of involved and affected custodial systems for a system indicated in said event is searched, and wherein if a system is found in a matter, then; notifying (alerting) one or more individuals selected from among an Attorney, a Paralegel and other appropriate individuals on one or more notification lists; sending a legal notice to appropriate staff associated with a custodial system informing them of preservation obligations regarding said system; and if a legal notice was sent, recording said legal notice, date of transmission, and all notice recipients in said LCC application to create an audit trail; triggering workflow processes to manage collection and processing, providing instructions, assignment, tracking of timely task completion, and exception handling for errors or incomplete tasks; said LCC application creating workflow items to track status of information preservation, to prompt relevant employees to confirm and validate that actions have been taken, and to handle exceptions when this is not done in a timely manner; providing search and reporting tools in connection with a list of all matters involving a custodial system, including status of information that may have been or may need to be collected/preserved.
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21. An apparatus for proactively determining potential evidence issues for custodial systems in active litigation, comprising:
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a legal communications and collections (LCC) application, said LCC providing a mechanism for allowing attorneys, paralegals, and other LCC users to identify custodial systems involved and affected by legal matters, as well as a list of employees involved due to their association with an affected custodial system; means for communicating, signaling, queuing, tagging, or otherwise indicating modifications in an appropriate system as custodial system attributes, status, or mapping associations change or are expected to change; and means for communicating custodial system change events to said LCC application, said events minimally comprising an ID or other unique identifier indicating which custodial system is affected. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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Specification