We all have a notion of what “sampling” means. My dictionary defines it as a “small separated part of something illustrating the qualities of the mass”. In electronic disclosure / e-discovery terms it can be useful at an early stage in determining what your document collection includes, to help make decisions as to what to include or where to start. At a later stage, it is used for checking what has been done, by pulling out examples of documents left in or out of a subset to check that the decisions stand scrutiny.
The new UK Practice Direction 31B includes “the use of Data Sampling” as one of the things which might be discussed with opponents before disclosure begins. The ability to take samples afterwards is part of the QA which lawyers like to do to reassure themselves, never mind anyone else, that they have done their job properly.
There is more to it than just sticking your hand into a bag and pulling out a few documents. Equally, it does not necessarily have to be a deeply mathematical exercise requiring the help of a statistician. Much modern software has tools designed to help manage a sampling exercise which will stand scrutiny.
LDM Global are producing a webinar on Thursday 27 January with the title Sampling for Dummies: Applying measuring techniques in ediscovery with Maura Grossman of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Professor Gordon Cormack of the University of Waterloo’s David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. I did a webinar with Maura just before Christmas – she gives good value, which translates across jurisdictions.
The details are as follows:
Date: Thursday 27th January
Time: 11am EST, 4pm GMT
Duration: Approximately one hour
You can find all the details and the registration link for the webinar on LDM Global’s website.
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