CONTEXT-AWARE eDISCOVERY™

Context is the key to controlling eDiscovery

Use context to make better discovery decisions from identification through review. Legal teams understand matters sooner, preserve and collect with more precision, and can show their work.

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Modern work outpaced eDiscovery

Cloud collaboration and AI have changed the shape of ESI. It now includes linked documents, changing versions, chat messages, shared repositories, and AI interactions, not only files sent as attachments or stored on network drives.

Who someone was at the time

What is typically available: a person's current identity.

What context can provide: the role a person held when the events occurred.

What was actually used

What is typically available: repository permissions.

What context can provide: the systems and content the person actually used.

Which version was shared

What is typically available: a preserved message with a hyperlink, or the current version of a file.

What context can provide: the file version associated with the sharing event, or the version a custodian viewed or edited.

The conversation around it

What is typically available: a stand-alone chat message.

What context can provide: the surrounding conversation needed to understand it.

The context gap

The context gap is the information cloud collaboration creates around ESI that does not travel with the content into discovery. It is a byproduct of how we collaborate and create data at work, not a gap in diligence.

Context-Aware eDiscovery resolves common discovery uncertainty

Context-Aware eDiscovery is an approach to eDiscovery that uses identity, activity, repository, and document context to help legal teams make better decisions from identification through review.

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The org chart has changed

A reorganization means the current org chart no longer reflects the relevant period. Historical identity and organizational relationships establish who held responsibility when the events occurred.

CONTEXT Identity over time

STAGE Identification

RESOLVES Who held responsibility at the time

A site the custodian did not mention

A custodian names email, Teams, and a personal OneDrive account, but not a departmental SharePoint site. Available audit activity and repository information surface the site for legal investigation.

CONTEXT Activity and repository

STAGE Identification

RESOLVES Where relevant ESI resides

A repository that was never in scope

Early analysis surfaces recurring communications involving a project repository that was never in scope. Return that to the matter, investigate the source, and refine preservation or collection scope.

CONTEXT Activity and repository

STAGE Early case assessment

RESOLVES What the scope missed

From volume-driven discovery…

Traditional workflows assume static attachments, stable ownership, and files that remain in one repository. Modern collaboration has changed all three.

People | Relies on current-state custodian information
Custodians | Treats custodians as containers of data
Relevance | Uses ownership and permissions as proxies for relevance
Linked content | Separates messages from linked cloud content
Scope | Collects broadly to offset uncertainty
Relationships | Reconstructs relationships after collection
Decisions | Explains decisions from incomplete records

...to decision-driven discovery

The earliest decisions shape everything that follows. Identification determines who is placed on legal hold, which repositories are investigated, what ESI is preserved, and how much data enters processing and review.

People | Evaluates people and roles across the relevant period
Custodians | Treats custodians as participants in matters and workflows
Relevance | Uses observed activity and repository information where available
Linked content | Connects messages with referenced files and relevant versions
Scope | Supports targeted, matter-specific preservation and collection
Relationships | Brings relationships into the workflow before downstream costs accumulate
Decisions | Maintains the information behind inclusion and exclusion decisions

The three dimensions of context

Matter context has three dimensions. Together, they answer questions that current-state information alone cannot.

Identity over
time

What role did this person hold when the matter occurred?

Activity and repository context

Which systems, repositories, and ESI did this person interact with during the relevant period?

Document state and relationships

Which document or version belongs with this communication or event?

Put Context-Aware eDiscovery into practice

CaseFusion brings identity, activity, repository, and document context into the matter and keeps it available across the discovery workflow.

Identify custodians & data sources

Establish custodians, sources, and repositories using historical identity and activity rather than current directory state.

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Audit log preservation & data mapping

Retain system activity information and use it to establish where relevant ESI resides and what should be collected from it.

Explore audit logs and data mapping

Legal hold & preservation

Issue, track, and manage holds with a connected record from obligation to preservation action, including connected content beyond custodian account boundaries.

Explore legal hold and preservation

Cloud attachments & relevant file versions

Resolve linked files and capture the versions associated with sharing and recipient-access events.

Explore attachments and versions

Early case assessment

Assess the matter early and return what is learned to scope.

Explore early case assessment

Put Context-Aware eDiscovery into practice with CaseFusion

Context discovered during identification informs preservation, and what analysis reveals, returns to the matter and refines scope. CaseFusion also records which custodians and sources were included or excluded, and why.

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Where CaseFusion fits alongside Microsoft 365

Many organizations running discovery in Microsoft 365 already use Microsoft Purview. CaseFusion helps legal teams use that information in a more connected, matter-centered process.

What Microsoft Purview provides

eDiscovery holds, search, and data-source management
Review sets, Teams workflows, and audit search
Cloud-attachment and file-version collection, retention, and export

What CaseFusion connects

Historical identity and organizational change establish who belongs in scope.
Indexed audit activity and repository use establish where relevant ESI resides.
Cloud attachments, recipient-access versions, and collect-to-preserve maintain the relationships that make preserved ESI interpretable.
Early case assessment returns what is learned to the matter, along with the decisions made along the way.

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Context-Aware eDiscovery FAQs

What is Context-Aware eDiscovery?

Context-Aware eDiscovery is an approach to eDiscovery that uses identity, activity, repository, and document context to help legal teams make better decisions from identification through review, rather than compensating for missing information by collecting more data.

What is the context gap in eDiscovery?

The context gap is the information cloud collaboration creates around ESI that does not travel with the content into discovery. Cloud platforms generate this context as work happens and retain it for operational purposes, leaving discovery to reconstruct it afterward from whatever survived.

Why doesn't collecting more data improve discovery decisions?

Broader collection responds to uncertainty rather than resolving it. It raises processing and review cost without answering who was involved, which repositories were used, or which version of a document was relevant.

What is identity context in eDiscovery?

Identity context is the record of the role a person held when the relevant events occurred, along with the accounts, addresses, and aliases they used at the time. Current directory state often does not reflect any of it.

Why does a preserved message sometimes lack the file it referenced?

Cloud collaboration replaced attachments with links. Preserving the message captures the link rather than the file, and the file may have changed or moved since.

How is Context-Aware eDiscovery different from traditional eDiscovery?

Traditional workflows answer questions about content. Context-Aware eDiscovery answers questions about the circumstances around it, and applies them at identification, where scope decisions determine everything downstream.

Where in the discovery lifecycle does context matter most?

At identification. Defensibility starts at identification and is executed at preservation, because preservation can only protect what identification found. Every later stage inherits the scope set at the beginning.

How does Context-Aware eDiscovery relate to EDRM 2.0?

EDRM 2.0 groups identification, preservation, collection, and processing into a Data Acquisition framework, reflecting a shift toward resolving more earlier in a matter. Context-Aware eDiscovery is an approach to doing that: bringing identity, activity, repository, and document context into those early decisions rather than compensating for missing information with volume or AI.

Close the context gap

See how Context-Aware eDiscovery helps legal teams establish scope with better information, preserve and collect with more precision, and explain the decisions behind both.

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