It can be overwhelming for government agencies to know where to start when beginning the eDiscovery procurement process. The discovery phase alone requires countless hours of research in order for agencies to gather the information needed to identify and secure the appropriate eDiscovery solution.
To help narrow the scope of your search for a new partner, we’ve compiled a checklist for your agency. Consider posing the following questions to prospective eDiscovery providers to determine whether they are the right partner or advisor for your agency.
Government’s eDiscovery Procurement Checklist
Security and Risk Questions
✓ Is your cloud solution FedRAMP or StateRAMP certified, and if so, when did it receive certification?
✓ What ISO security certifications has your company achieved?
✓ Does your organization perform regular risk assessments, security monitoring, and third-party audits? If so, how often?
✓ Has your organization been subject to any regulatory enforcement actions in the past five years? If so, please provide details.
✓ Does your organization apply principles of least privilege and/or the Zero Trust Model?
✓ How does your organization ensure resilience in the event of a disruption?
✓ Does your solution encrypt data both at rest and in motion?
✓ How does your organization assess the security controls of its technology partners?
✓ Do you use strong multi-factor authentication protocols when available?
✓ What controls are in place to ensure sensitive data is protected or permanently destroyed?
✓ Does your solution provide detailed audit logs to show data access and user actions?
✓ Please describe your platform’s role permission settings.
Product Questions
✓ Which file types does your solution support?
✓ Please describe how robust your product is. For example, can your product scale to handle large volumes of structured and unstructured data?
✓ Does your product provide users with powerful configurable workflow and analytical capabilities, including the ability to ingest, process, and handle an expanding variety and growing volume of discoverable file types?
✓ In what ways does your eDiscovery solution leverage AI-based technologies to automate the review process?
✓ Does your product leverage AI to analyze collected documents for key terms and concepts to narrow down search results according to natural-language search queries?
✓ Does your solution possess advanced search and analytics capabilities that enable users to quickly locate pertinent documents, identify trends or patterns in large data sets, and automatically classify documents based on context and metadata?
✓ Does your solution include redaction tools that help agencies identify, redact, and remove sensitive personal information? If so, please describe.
✓ What self-service features does your product include?
✓ How easy is it to manage data in your platform?
✓ Does your platform provide APIs to integrate with other applications?
✓ What input do customers have in defining the product roadmap?
✓ What is the maximum amount of data your solution can process in a week?
✓ Does your product provide robust reporting functions to support data and workload management and external reporting requirements?
✓ Has your solution been included in any independent industry analyst reports?
Implementation and User Adoption Questions
✓ How does your organization onboard new customers? What kind of training do you offer during the lifecycle of the contract?
✓ How long does it typically take to configure your solution and onboard an organization?
✓ Do you have experience implementing your solution with a government agency? If so, how many users were trained during the onboarding process?
✓ Do you have an SLA in place for response times?
By systematically addressing these questions, government agencies can expertly navigate the eDiscovery procurement process with greater confidence, ensuring the selection of a partner equipped to meet their specific demands and regulatory obligations.
Download our whitepaper to see how a trusted partner can help government agencies overcome their biggest eDiscovery challenges.
Author
Executive Vice President, Government
Amy Hilbert is Casepoint’s Executive Vice President of Government, where she is responsible for creating and managing client relationships with federal and state government agencies. She brings 20+ years of experience supporting federal-civilian and DOD clients. Prior to joining Casepoint, Amy was…
