In an era of increasing litigation, regulatory scrutiny, and data sprawl, eDiscovery has become a critical function for IT and legal teams alike. Whether responding to a legal hold, internal investigation, or compliance audit, organizations must be able to quickly locate, preserve, and produce relevant electronic information.

This blog explores the fundamentals of eDiscovery, the capabilities of Microsoft 365, and best practices for building a defensible, scalable eDiscovery strategy.

What Is eDiscovery?

eDiscovery (electronic discovery) is the process of identifying, collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information (ESI) in response to legal or regulatory requests. This includes emails, Teams chats, documents, calendars, and more.

Key drivers include:

  • Civil litigation
  • Regulatory investigations (e.g., SEC, HIPAA, GDPR)
  • Internal HR or compliance reviews
  • Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests

Why IT Leaders Must Care

Legal teams may drive eDiscovery, but IT leaders enable it. Your role is pivotal in:

  • Ensuring data is accessible and properly retained
  • Managing permissions and access controls
  • Supporting legal holds and data preservation
  • Integrating eDiscovery tools with existing infrastructure

The eDiscovery Lifecycle

  1. Identification
    Locate potentially relevant data across Microsoft 365 workloads (Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams). Use Microsoft Purview’s Content Search and eDiscovery tools to scope the data set.
  2. Preservation
    Apply legal holds to prevent deletion or modification of content. Holds can be targeted by user, keyword, or location.
  3. Collection
    Export data for review or transfer to third-party review platforms. Microsoft 365 supports secure, audited exports in PST or native formats.
  4. Review
    Use Advanced eDiscovery to filter, tag, and analyze content. Features include near-duplicate detection, email threading, and relevance scoring.
  5. Production
    Deliver data in a format that meets legal or regulatory requirements, with full chain-of-custody documentation.

Microsoft 365 eDiscovery Capabilities

Microsoft Purview offers three eDiscovery tools: Content search, eDiscovery (Standard), and eDiscovery (Premium). The table below summarizes their main features.

Capability

Content search

eDiscovery (Standard)

eDiscovery (Premium)

Search for content

✅

✅

✅

Keyword queries and search conditions

✅

✅

✅

Search statistics

✅

✅

✅

Export search results

✅

✅

✅

Role-based permissions

✅

✅

✅

Case management

  

✅

✅

Place content locations on legal hold

  

✅

✅

Custodian management

    

✅

Legal hold notifications

    

✅

Advanced indexing

    

✅

Error remediation

    

✅

Review sets

    

✅

Support for cloud attachments and SharePoint versions

    

✅

Optical character recognition

    

✅

Conversation threading

    

✅

Collection statistics and reports

    

✅

Review set filtering

    

✅

Tagging

    

✅

Analytics

    

✅

Predictive coding models

    

✅

Computed document metadata

    

✅

Transparency of long-running jobs

    

✅

Export to customer-owned Azure Storage location

    

✅

Premium eDiscovery is ideal for large-scale or high-risk cases, offering analytics and automation to reduce review time and cost.

Best Practices for IT Leaders

IT leaders can make eDiscovery strategic by integrating governance, collaboration, and readiness into daily routines for proactive compliance.

  • 🔒 Establish clear information governance policies
  • 🗂️ Proactively classify and tag sensitive data
  • 🧪 Test eDiscovery workflows in advance
  • 🤝 Collaborate with legal and compliance teams
  • 📚 Keep up with regulations (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)

eDiscovery is no longer just a legal concern—it’s a core IT responsibility. With the right tools and processes, organizations can respond quickly to legal and compliance demands while minimizing risk and cost. Microsoft 365 provides a powerful, integrated platform to manage the entire eDiscovery lifecycle—securely, efficiently, and at scale.

How Olive + Goose Helps

  • Assesses your current eDiscovery readiness and compliance posture.
  • Configures Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard and Premium) environments.
  • Implement retention, labeling, and legal hold policies.
  • Provides training for legal, compliance, and IT teams on eDiscovery workflows.
  • Supports mock audits and real-time incident response.

With deep experience in regulated industries, Olive + Goose ensures your eDiscovery processes are defensible, efficient, and audit-ready.

Disclaimer: AI-assisted, Olive + Goose approved.

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