Management and Discovery of PST Files

The legal department and IT often inadvertently find themselves at odds as both groups try to fulfill their mandates and do what’s best for the organization. One perfect example of this conflict can be seen in the issue of mailbox quotas that limit the amount of storage employees can use.

This tactic causes users to delete large or older e-mails or move them to other places on their computers. Unfortunately, this approach can be a disaster from a records management perspective. What makes sense from an IT perspective can cause enormous headaches when the legal department has to issue legal holds or conduct e-discovery.

Mailbox quotas can also lead to unintended consequences for organizations that rely on Microsoft e-mail and communication software. When Microsoft-based e-mail inboxes hit their storage quotas, they automatically create personal storage table (PST) files.

Characteristics of PSTs.

PSTs differ from most other types of files. PSTs are notoriously unstable and can become corrupted at size limits. They aren’t typically part of the backup regime. They contain enormous numbers of files, up to 100,000 different mail items, which causes logistical issues when the legal team needs to separate responsive data from non-responsive data within a single PST. They tend to be scattered on servers, laptops and desktops, instead of located in one logical, easy-to-find place.

Companies also tend to generate a lot of these files. A fairly large company can have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of PSTs residing on its systems. This can create nightmares when it comes to legal holds and discovery.

Attorneys who aren’t familiar with the nature and challenges of PST files need to understand how they work and the risks they represent to organizations. In order to combat these risks, attorneys must be able to answer several critical questions:

• Are they aware of all the PST files within the organization?
• Do they have access to all of them?
• Can in-house and outside counsel be certain that all the data that resides in the PSTs have been examined during discovery?
• What steps can they take to minimize the expenses involved with collecting, reviewing, and processing PSTs?

The Problems with PSTs

PSTs, which can be identified by the .pst file type extension, are a potential issue for every organization that uses Microsoft Outlook.

PST files are generally created as a way to store copies of e-mails, calendar events, and other items generated through Microsoft software.

When PST files are created, the data they contain is no longer factored into the storage size of users’ mailboxes. This technological solution to storage limitations causes ripple effects for records management and legal purposes.

Scale.

One of the issues is the sheer scale of the problem. According to our estimates, many companies will have at least twice the number of PSTs as the number of current users, and some companies can have three or even four times that number.

We also estimate that about 25 percent of the files reside on either desktops or laptops. The rest might be scattered on the organization’s servers, which makes them extremely difficult to track down.

Many of these files were created by employees who have long since left the organization, and these “orphan” PST files have been disassociated from the user who created them.

Taking Ownership.

In many companies, finding someone to take ownership of the issue is often a problem. The IT department may not understand the issues involved from a records management and e-discovery perspective.

IT’s View.

From the IT perspective, the main challenges are the total size of PSTs and the impact they would have on storage if all of them are brought together. IT also has to consider the effort involved in tracking them down and relocating them without impacting users. The time involved in this can take the equivalent of weeks and months.

Legal’s Perspective.

On the legal side, in-house counsel may not be aware of the unique factors PSTs represent.

While it may seem like an IT issue, legal counsel needs to consider how dealing with the issue of PSTs will impact overall hardware and software system performance. Tracking down and managing so many files can slow down the entire system.

While it’s easy to ignore the needs of IT in the midst of a litigation, that’s a very shortsighted approach. Sooner rather than later, the legal team will need IT’s expertise, so developing and maintaining good relationships with that department should always be a priority.

Legal Holds and PSTs

With such a large and multi-faceted problem, the legal team needs a strategic solution to manage PSTs during e-discovery and when sending out legal hold notices.

Legal holds are a challenge under any circumstance. Many employees don’t understand what they are supposed to do when they receive a legal hold notice, or they don’t take the time to figure it out. Since PST files are particularly baffling, legal teams need to expend extra effort throughout the legal hold and e-discovery process.

Benefits of the Right Approach.

The right technology and processes can make the legal hold process for PSTs much less painful and uncertain for everyone involved. The ability to “hold” documents without storing them or archiving them can greatly streamline the legal hold process in a proactive manner. With the ability to search active e-mails and hold only those which are responsive, companies can eliminate the time and expense involved with instituting legal holds.

Automation.

One way to manage this is by providing an automatic search and legal hold system for active mailboxes. In light of the time and expense involved, this approach makes the most obvious sense for companies that are frequently involved in lawsuits. Considering the likelihood that most companies will be involved with litigation at some point, though, in-house counsel could greatly benefit their clients by considering options before litigation commences or before the legal team reasonably expects litigation.

PSTs and Discovery

If it weren’t for e-discovery, most attorneys wouldn’t need to think twice about PSTs. But PSTs can contain potentially responsive data, which must be produced. Collecting and moving PSTs to a central location is complicated and expensive, and it can be nearly impossible to verify that the team has tracked down every PST. When handled incorrectly, PSTs can also become corrupted, which puts the organization at risk of spoliation claims.

In order to successfully collect, review, process, and produce the information within PSTs, the legal team needs to consider several factors.

Find the Right Tools.

It’s not possible to simply type in a few search terms and pull up data and information from PST files. Searching PSTs requires a specific program, which is basically proprietary to Outlook.

While the latest versions of Outlook have much more sophisticated search capabilities than previous versions, those do not apply to PST files. Searching through Outlook will also modify metadata, which is unacceptable during discovery.

In order to search PST files, legal teams typically extract them, which generally recovers the content and, in most cases, the metadata, into a searchable format.

Over-Inclusiveness.

This approach works too well and will generate all the data in PSTs. These types of files are notorious for being crammed full of different types of data, multiple copies of a file, and other information irrelevant to the matter at hand. The extraction method will give the team far more data than it wants or needs.

Rather than just extracting the data and searching it, the legal team needs to carefully consider which software solutions and litigation support or review platforms to use. The solution needs to properly preserve the PST files, so the data isn’t modified and won’t be lost. It also needs to include a built-in verification process and audit trail, so the legal team can prove data wasn’t lost or modified during e-discovery.

Several in-place solutions exist that can search PSTs and mailboxes. These are typically installed on the system. However, these solutions generally require specific administration access to all the data within the organization. Since these are not available to non-IT professionals, these searches must be done by IT administrators. These solutions also can’t automatically locate PST files and must be told where to look for them.

Before committing to a specific solution, it’s important to understand the needs for each particular matter, how different solutions will work within the organization, and which approach best fits the timeline and budget.

Find the Right Production Format.

PSTs also present significant production issues. While parties involved in litigation tend to use native production formats, that’s not a straightforward solution for these types of files. Re-constituting relevant data into a new PST creates new metadata, which can be problematic. Organizations also don’t want to just turn over all the information in PST files to opposing counsel. With so much information in these files, they risk handing over privileged information or being accused of doing a data dump.

Since native production isn’t an option, the legal team may next consider producing PSTs as TIFF files. However, TIFF files don’t include metadata. Producing a separate document or report of the metadata is less than optimal, since opponents have been known to challenge this type of report.

When it comes to production formats, knowing is half the battle. If the team realizes early on that discovery may involve large numbers of PST files, it can attempt to head off many of these issues during the Meet and Confer, which is required under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 26(f). By working out production methods with the other side early on, counsel can save a great deal of time, money, and arguments later.

Planning Ahead for PSTs.

It’s hard to make strategic decisions during the midst of a lawsuit. Ideally, in-house counsel, outside attorneys, and IT will be able to develop smart policies and install the right technology before litigation happens. With a proactive approach that takes into account the issues of both legal and IT, companies can identify their vulnerabilities, shop around for the right technologies and develop plans for PST files before lawsuits occur.

With the luxury of time, it becomes much easier to identify the best technologies. Some tools work well during litigations for processing and searching PSTs. They don’t function nearly as well when companies are trying to proactively manage files before a litigation is filed. Before paying for a solution, be sure it’s the optimal tool.

Many companies haven’t even considered the issue of PSTs as part of their e-mail archiving and records management strategy. If counsel hasn’t done so yet, it’s time to begin thinking about it.

The right solutions will allow the organization to search for and find all PSTs with minimal inconvenience to IT and the potential custodians. Be sure the one you select functions in a way that is defensible with a minimum of cost and work.