This article, authored by Sathishprabhu Jayabal, Exterro Director of Product Management, originally appeared on November 9, 2022, in the Times of India.

The legal system in India, unlike other sectors, has been slow in digitalising. The rate of penetration of legal tech in India is very low; with an incipient 10% penetration level, the size of the domestic LegalTech market stands at $380 million. This spells growth with a huge potential, but there are a few roadblocks.  

The Existing Realities of the Indian Legal System

Most administrative processes used by legal professionals in India are ad-hoc and archaic, relying heavily on paper-based systems that leave immense scope for inefficiency and delay. Often, the process of discovery and legal review is fragmented. As a result:

• Administrative Burden: Non-substantive administrative tasks like filing, case allocation scheduling, and document management consume 45–55% of a legal professional’s time.
• Summons Delays: Just the act of issuing summons—something that should be relatively straightforward in the digital age—accounts for one-fourth of the lifecycle of a civil suit, or roughly 273 days.
• Economic Impact: An estimated ₹80,000 crore of business was lost due to prolonged court cases, and more than $20 billion in public infrastructure projects were stalled due to pending litigation.

This is why 54–57% of Indian companies state they need automated processes, especially for the process of discovery—the gathering, reviewing, and analysis of data relevant to litigation. E-discovery technology is bound to improve the efficiency of legal processes, ensuring smooth operations and a stark reduction in financial losses.

Solving Problems with E-Discovery Technology

1. End-to-End Automation

India is currently generating upwards of 32,397 petabytes of data. With rapid digitalization, electronically stored information (ESI) has increased exponentially. This increases the time taken to gather data for litigation if it is done manually. For instance, an enterprise with over 1,000 employees and operations across different regions will have data scattered across offices or the devices of remote employees.

Similarly, an average enterprise in India has to navigate a series of complex processes just to complete discovery. Say an organization has offices across the country and its headquarters in Delhi. If they want to investigate data located in a satellite branch, doing it manually creates immediate bottlenecks. It takes days or weeks to compile the information in a single place.

Without specialized software, IT teams across these regions must manually gather data from each device, compile it, transfer it to the cloud, load it back to a hard drive, and finally send it to the legal team.

Perusing through each piece of information this way is a cumbersome and lengthy process. If the company adopts an automated e-discovery tool, legal teams can gather data from remote endpoints with the click of a button, indexing and analyzing it for review within a matter of hours.

Furthermore, if the e-discovery software has built-in production and presentation capabilities, it ensures all data is normalized into the same format, eliminating the need to operate multiple tools. Data silos and the margin for error are greatly reduced, while accurate indexing allows files to be cleanly presented in court for easy judicial review, bypassing stacks of paperwork.

2. A Forensically Sound Process of Discovery

The process of discovery for civil cases in India is defined by the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). Indian civil litigants are required to file an application with the court to gain access to discovery documents. The law also allows the parties to a legal suit to give notice, at any time during the suit, for inspection of any document referenced in another party’s pleadings or affidavits. This requires forensically sound data to be ready at a moment's notice to avoid inordinate delays.  

Additionally, the discovery of electronic evidence is regulated by the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. The intersection of the CPC and the IT Act can make data gathering, compliance, and review a lengthy process.  

Establishing an airtight chain of custody for each piece of evidence can make or break a case, and the risk of spoliation persists if data is gathered manually. When there is a breach in the chain of custody, critical documents can be deemed completely inadmissible by the bench.

E-discovery technology automatically records the chain of custody the moment data is collected. For instance, if critical evidence is sitting on an employee's device in a different state, the software logs:

• The exact date and time of the collection.
• The specific target device and source path.
• An automatically generated cryptographic hash key (e.g., MD5 or SHA-256) for every file.

The hash key acts as a digital fingerprint, establishing to the court that the electronic record is authentic, unaltered, and forensically sound.

The Bottom Line

The process of discovery is critical to modern businesses, especially when high-stakes lawsuits hinge on specific "smoking guns"—like the hidden contents of a few emails or text messages. Relying on manual collection, analysis, and review of data frequently leads to unfavorable legal outcomes. E-discovery software not only helps businesses better manage their internal investigations and litigation matters, but it actively leads the way toward a streamlined, efficient legal ecosystem in India.

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