This guide explains how to identify the right custodians for electronic disclosure, covering people, shared sources, and organisational data.
Guide · 35 pages · 38 min read · Published 2026-10-03
UK legal practitioners frequently struggle to properly scope data collection during electronic disclosure, particularly when identifying relevant individuals versus broader corporate systems. Prepared by the Computer Forensics Lab e-Discovery team, this reference equips lawyers to make defensible decisions when populating the Disclosure Review Document or responding to Electronic Disclosure Questionnaires. It clarifies the critical distinction between custodial sources tied to specific staff and non-custodial organisational repositories, including shared mailboxes, departmental repositories, service accounts, CRM, and ERP systems. Practitioners learn to apply a tiering decision tree, evaluate former employees whose OneDrive or archived mailboxes remain in company control, and resolve edge cases involving delegates, contractors, directors, and group identities. The text details a custodian interview methodology covering messaging channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, personal devices, and informal spreadsheets. It also provides drafting aids for system owner nominations, questions for opponents, checklists for common technical limitations, and criteria for when full chain-of-custody documentation and specialist digital forensic experts are required.
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35 pages · 38 min read
How to choose the people and repositories whose data gets collected, and defend those choices.
Published by Computer Forensics Lab on 2026-10-03. Original material of the practice, free to read, cite and download. The authority behind this subject is Practice Direction 57AD, Disclosure in the Business and Property Courts, which you should read alongside this guide. See every guide's author and source.
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Custodians and non-custodial sources; shared mailboxes, department a l repositories, service accounts, former employees and organisational data - how to choose the people whose documents get collected, defend the choices, and interview them so nothing surfaces late.
13 Worked example 1: Aldgate's register - from 30 names to 9 custodians
14 Worked example 2: the hot custodian - Marsh from both sides of the litigation
15 Worked example 3: the sources with no owner - contracts@ and the GmbH
Custodian interview: Part A role and events, Part B systems and habits, Part C personal-channel exposure, Part D preservation and conduct.
40 pages · 59 min read
The duty to cooperate under PD 57AD and how to meet it without surrendering strategy.
40 pages · 45 min read
Where electronic evidence lives today and how to find it before it disappears.
Whether you are responding to a regulator, preparing for disclosure, or scoping an internal investigation, start the chain of custody with a short, confidential conversation.
