XPSP-505 - eDiscovery (PSP)

Course Description

Almost all legal disputes today involve some amount of electronically stored information (ESI) that provides critical facts and understanding regarding the dispute. Improperly managing these materials can sabotage the best efforts of a legal team, as well as opening both it and its client to potential legal liability.

This course introduces key e-discovery concepts that paralegals will apply in most of the matters that they support. Through a combination of lectures, hands-on classroom exercises, and written assignments, students will learn how to spot critical e-discovery issues and how to best resolve them.

Course Textbook

Students are required to purchase or rent Project Management in Electronic Discovery for the course.

Course Registration

This course is an open enrollment course. No application is required and registration is available by clicking "Add to Cart" below.

Current students must register with their Georgetown NetID and password. New students must first create an account and password through the Student Portal prior to registration. After your account is created, you will receive your Georgetown NetID via email. When you have your Georgetown NetID and password, continue registration by clicking "Add to Cart", logging in, and following the steps to complete checkout. Course registration is complete when payment is processed and you receive a confirmation email.

Georgetown NetID Password Reset

If you have forgotten or do not have your Georgetown University NetID password, please contact the University Information Systems (UIS) 24/7 IT Helpdesk to have your password reset.

More Information

For more information or to speak with a program advisor, please complete the Request More Information Form, send an email to ccpeprograms@georgetown.edu, or call (202) 687-8700.

Course Objectives

The course will cover the following topics:

• Discovery and the purposes of discovery in litigation
• The Paralegal’s role within the realm of Electronic Discovery
• Changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to address the discovery of electronically stored information
• Rules governing what information is discoverable
• The duty to preserve evidence and litigation holds
• The significance of spoliation in discovery and sanctions for spoliation of evidence
• The e-discovery process and the role of information management
• Methods used to identify relevant information
• Preparing raw electronically stored information for review
• How ESI is processed for review
• Hosting ESI – database platforms
• Document review strategies and objectives (platforms and projects)
• Issues in reviewing large volumes of material as part of e-discovery
• Techniques for filtering, reducing, and coding large volumes of documents
• The importance of privilege review and Quality Control procedures
• The process for authentication of documents
• The production of documents following document review (format options)
• Careers and the future of eDiscovery