Patent ID: 8868561

Claim:
A method for conducting electronic discovery within an enterprise environment, comprising: generating, via a computer processor, an electronic discovery case, wherein the electronic discovery case is a matter in which electronic data is sought, located, collected and searched for a purpose of using the electronic data as evidence in one of a legal proceeding, an audit, a regulatory investigation or a forensic investigation; linking, via a computer processor, a custodian profile of a custodian to the electronic discovery case, wherein linking is configured to associate custodian data stored in the custodian profile with case data stored in an electronic discovery case-specific file and wherein the custodian profile includes one or more Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, each of which is associated with a network computing device that have been identified as personal network storage locations associated with the custodian; and in response to linking the custodian profile to the electronic discovery case, automatically collecting, via a computer network, electronic data associated with the custodian by: accessing the customer profile to determine the one or more IP addresses, and initiating deployment and automatic installation of a local collection tool at each of the network computing devices associated with one of the IP addresses, wherein the local collection tool is configured to (1) generate, at each of the network computing devices, a snapshot of data stored locally at the network computing device, (2) store the snapshot in a storage area on the network computing device, and (3) communicate copies of electronic files from the snapshot to a collection device.