EDRM Announces Cross-Border E-Discovery Initiative to Help Organizations Comply with GDPR

DURHAM, N.C. - Sept. 5, 2017 - PRLog -- EDRM, the leading standards organization for the e-discovery market under the auspices of the Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies, announced a new initiative to help develop practical guidelines for cross-border transfer of information for e-discovery. The guidelines will lay the foundation for the creation of a formal code of conduct.

The cross-border initiative is intended to address the new General Data Protection Regulations that will replace the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) in May 2018. All companies or organizations that handle personal data identifying individuals in the European Union in the regular course of business will be required to comply with the GDPR. Companies doing business with organizations in the EU should expect the compliance requirements to be extended through the supply chain.

The EDRM project team will work to research and further develop practical guidelines for navigating the conflicting U.S./EU requirements for processing evidence from the EU during e-discovery. Though this is not envisioned to be a formal Code of Conduct under Article 40, the guidelines will lay a foundation to support later development of a formal code of conduct.

"Anyone who has dealt with reconciling conflicting laws for evidence transfer understands the challenges and the benefit this work can bring," says Deena Coffman, managing director at BDO and the EDRM GDPR project co-lead. "We expect the work of the cross-border team to bring tremendous benefits to counsel, clients and judges everywhere."

"EDRM is in a unique position to spearhead the development of cross-border guidelines in e-discovery, given the expertise and commitment of members and the support that Duke Law can provide," says James Waldron, director of EDRM at Duke Law and project co-lead.

The project team convened for the first planning meeting in August, to review objectives, schedule and project plan. All members of EDRM, including lawyers, paralegals, information governance experts and e-discovery consultants are invited to participate in this GDPR project team. Volunteers are asked to commit approximately 10 hours per month to participate in meetings, research, design, drafting and modeling.

Interested volunteers are invited to email EDRM@law.duke.edu describing their interest and relevant experience.

About EDRM

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) creates practical resources to improve e-discovery and information governance. Since 2005, EDRM has delivered leadership, standards, best practices, tools, guides and test data sets to improve electronic discovery and information governance. Member individuals, law firms, corporations and government organizations actively contribute to the direction of EDRM. In 2016, EDRM became part of the Center for Judicial Studies at Duke Law School. EDRM expands the center's efforts to provide educational and professional resources in electronic discovery and information governance in support of its mission to promote a better understanding of the judicial process and generate ideas for improving the administration of justice. Visit EDRM.net to become a member. To learn more about the Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies, visit https://law.duke.edu/judicialstudies.