Skip to main content

Analyze Incoming ESI Productions

At Meridian Discovery, we prepare and load test electronically stored information (ESI) productions on a regular basis. We know how to tell a proper ESI production from a poorly executed one, and we would be happy to review productions you receive from your opponent and let you know whether or not they meet the legal requirements and agreed upon specifications in your discovery agreement.

While reviewing incoming ESI productions, we can look for a long list of potential deficiencies depending on the case. A few examples:

ESI Productions

Load Test

Does the production properly load into the intended legal review platform?

Load File Structure

Do the load files have any structural errors? Do they have the required encoding and delimiters? Do they cause any parsing errors?

Extracted Text & OCR

Does each document have properly extracted text or OCR where applicable? Was OCR used unnecessarily when high quality text could have been extracted electronically?

Images

If the ESI production includes images, are they of adequate quality? Are all images compressed and sized consistently and according to the agreed upon image specifications?

Components of the ESI Production

Do the images, text files, native files etc. reside where the load files say they should be?

Produced Metadata

Did opposition produce all the metadata fields they were supposed to?

Redactions

Are redactions present in the ESI production? Did you receive a redaction log and a privilege log indicating where the redactions are and why redactions were performed?

Exceptions

Were some of the documents produced as exception placeholders? Were you provided with an exception report explaining why these documents were exceptions?

Bates Gaps

Does the ESI production volume contain Bates gaps? Were certain Bates ranges replaced by placeholders (e.g. “This Page was Intentionally Left Blank”) or omitted altogether?

Consistency of ESI Production Volumes

Are the ESI production volumes consistent with each other? For example, do all volumes have the same load file fields, structure, encoding etc.?

Prepare and Quality Control Outgoing ESI Productions

Whether you have us do your e-Discovery processing, or you do it in-house, there is great value in having Meridian Discovery expertly prepare your outgoing ESI productions. We can prepare native, hybrid, image & load file or PDF productions with complex annotations, designations and endorsement requirements. We can import redaction coordinates from numerous review platforms, optionally normalize images before endorsement and produce color for color where applicable.

We prepare review and production deliverables for most common legal review platforms (e.g. LexisNexis Concordance, AccessData Summation, kCura Relativity, iCONECT etc.) on a regular basis. If you are dealing with an exotic or legacy system, we can prepare custom deliverables for virtually any legal review platform as long as you give us the specifications.

If your workflow requires you to prepare your own productions in-house, you can still take advantage of our ESI production experience by having us perform final quality control on your outgoing ESI production. We can run your production through the wringer and provide feedback as if you were on the receiving end of your own production. Any problems? You will get a detailed report on what they are and how they can be corrected.