Introducing The Complete Guide to eDiscovery and eDisclosure

We have published the most complete reference we produce: The Complete Guide to eDiscovery and eDisclosure. It runs to 74 pages across 30 sections and five parts, and it follows a matter from the moment litigation is contemplated through to the final trial bundle and the disposal of the data afterwards. It is free to read on the site and free to download as a PDF.

Why we wrote it

Most introductions to eDiscovery are written for the United States, where the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, litigation holds and subpoenas set the vocabulary. Lawyers in England and Wales work to a different rulebook: CPR Part 31, Practice Direction 31B and, in the Business and Property Courts, Practice Direction 57AD. Reading American material and translating as you go is how avoidable mistakes get made, particularly around scope, cooperation and the duty to disclose known adverse documents.

This guide starts from the English position and then shows, stage by stage, where United States practice diverges, because so many matters now touch both systems. Cross-border teams can work from a single document rather than two incompatible ones.

What is inside

Part One, Foundations. What electronic disclosure is and what England calls it, the English rulebook including Models A to E under PD 57AD, a topic by topic comparison with United States discovery, and the ten stage lifecycle that organises the rest of the guide.

Part Two, Before the dispute and at its start. Information governance and litigation readiness, defensible deletion, the data map, leavers and personal devices. When the duty to preserve arises, PD 57AD paragraph 4 step by step, the hold cycle, hold notices and preservation letters. Where evidence actually lives across eight source families, custodian tiers and the question of control. Collection method, metadata, hashing and chain of custody.

Part Three, From data to disclosure. The processing pipeline and the settings that are really legal decisions, early case assessment, a seven step search method with hit reporting, the review protocol and quality control, technology assisted review and generative AI with the validation statistics and the case law behind them, privilege and redaction, then production, inspection and authenticity.

Part Four, Special situations. Documents held by non-parties, cross-border matters where United States discovery meets UK data, data protection in disclosure including the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, costs and proportionality, choosing technology and providers, and forums beyond the High Court.

Part Five, The toolkit. Worked examples, fifteen recurring mistakes, red flags, when a disclosure question has become a forensic question, forty questions to ask the client, the opponent and the provider, suggested wording for preservation advice, hold notices and DRD entries, a master checklist, a fifty term glossary and a full reference list.

The seven points the guide keeps returning to

• Preservation comes first, and it is the lawyer's job to start it. Suspend automatic deletion before anything else happens.
• The evidence is no longer in the mailbox alone. Chat, collaboration platforms, mobile devices, cloud systems and audit logs hold the decisive material.
• Collect once, collect properly. Unsupervised self-collection by the client remains the most common cause of failed disclosure.
• Review is where the money goes, so reduce what reaches it with processing, early case assessment and tested search terms.
• Cooperation and transparency are duties, not courtesies. Agree sources, date ranges, keywords and methodology early, and record what was agreed.
• England is not the United States. Narrower issue-based disclosure, costs shifting, the implied restriction on collateral use and the express duty to disclose known adverse documents.
• Know when the question has become forensic. Deleted data, disputed authenticity, departing employees and mobile devices call for an expert, not a larger review team.

How to use it

If you are new to electronic disclosure, read Part One in order. If you are running a live matter, go straight to the stage you are at and use the checklist in Part Five to confirm nothing upstream was missed. If you are instructing a provider or scoping a budget, sections 18 and 19 on costs, proportionality and selection are the place to start.

Read the guide, or browse the rest of the PDF library. Law is stated as at 20 September 2026. Nothing in the guide is legal advice on any particular matter.