Patent ID: 8903826

Claim:
A method for providing an electronic discovery system, comprising: providing for a case management level within an electronic discovery system, wherein the electronic discovery system provides for electronic data to be located, collected and searched for a purpose of using the electronic data as evidence in one or more of a legal proceeding, an audit a regulatory investigation or a forensic investigation; linking, by a computer processor device, a custodial management level to the case management level; linking, by a computer processor device, a data management level to the case management level and the custodial management level; generating, by a computing device processor, an electronic discovery case at the case management level and adding, by a computing device processor, a plurality of custodians to the electronic discovery case, wherein the linking of the custodial management level to the case management level provides for, in response to adding the custodians to the electronic discovery case, (1) accessing profile data of the plurality of custodians, which is stored in custodian profiles at a first storage location, from case data related to the electronic discovery case, which is stored in a case-specific file at a second storage location and (2) accessing the case data from the custodian profiles; and collecting, by a computing device processor, a data set determined to be associated with each of the plurality of custodians, wherein the linking of the data management level to the case management level and custodial management level provides for, in response to collecting the electronic data (1) accessing the data set, which is stored in an electronic data file at a third storage location, from either the case data or a customer profile associated with a corresponding custodian, (2) accessing the customer profile from the data set, and (3) accessing the case data from the data set.