AAL
Attorney at Law
ABA
American Bar Association
AG
Attorney General
ACC
Association of Corporate Counsel
ATTY
Attorney
Action
Also called a case or lawsuit. A civil judicial proceeding where one party sues another for a wrong done, or to protect a right or to prevent a wrong.
Admissible
Evidence that is allowable in court.
Affidavit
A sworn or affirmed statement made in writing and signed; if sworn, it must be notarized.
Amend
To change or modify.
Analytics
The term used to refer to the various technologies used to provide multiple views into the data set.
Answer
A paper submitted by a defendant in which he/she responds to and/or denies the allegations of the plaintiff; the usual response to a complaint or petition.
Appeal
A proceeding to have a case examined by a higher court to see if a lower court's decision was made correctly according to law.
Archive
Long term repository for the storage of records and files
Attachment
A document or file that is connected to another document or file either externally, e.g. a document connected to an email, or embedded, e.g. an image in a word processing document.
Attachment Backup
Both the action of and the result of creating a copy of data as a precaution against the loss or damage of the original data.
Attestation
The act of witnessing an instrument in writing at the request of the party making the instrument and signing it as a witness.
Backup Tape
Portable media used to store copies of data that are created as a precaution against the loss or damage of the original data.
Batch Processing
The processing of a large amount of ESI in a single step.
Brief
A written or printed document prepared by the lawyers or litigants on each side of a dispute and submitted to the court in support of their arguments - a brief includes the points of law which the person wished to establish, the arguments he or she uses, and the legal authorities on which he or she rests his/her conclusions.
CMS
Content Management System
CMS
Case Management System
Co-Lo
Co-Location
Case File
The court file containing papers submitted in a case.
Chain-of-Custody
The processing, tracking and recording the movement, handling and location of electronic evidence chronologically from collection to production. It is used to verify the authenticity of the ESI.
Child Document
A file that is attached to another communication file. E.g. the attachment to an email or a spreadsheet imbedded in a word processing document.
Complaint
The initial pleading in an action formally setting forth the facts and reasons on which the claims and demand for relief are based.
Container File
A single file containing multiple documents and/or files, usually in a compressed format; e.g. zip, rar, pst.
Counsel
Lawyer or attorney.
Custodian
Most often refers to the individual from whose file systems a group of records were extracted. This person is not necessarily the author of the documents.

DaaS
Desktop as a service
DM
Document Management
DMS
Document Management System
Data Extraction
The process of parsing data from electronic documents to identify their metadata and body contents.
Data Mapping
The process of identifying and recording the location and types of ESI within an organization’s network, and policies and procedures related to that ESI.
Date-Stamp
The stamping on a document of the date it is received.
De-duplication
De-duping. The process of comparing the characteristics of electronic documents to identify and/or remove duplicate records to reduce review time and increase coding consistency.
Defendant
The party being sued, the party against whom a claim has been made.
De-NIST
The process of separating documents generated by a computer system from those created by a user. This automated process utilized a list of file extensions developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Deposition
Sworn testimony of a witness made other than in court.
Disclosure
Discovery. A proceeding whereby one party to an action may be informed as to facts known by other parties or witnesses, example depositions.
Discovery
The process of identifying, securing, reviewing information that is potentially relevant to the matter and producing information that can be utilized as evidence in the legal process.
Docket
A document which summarizes a case, also the court’s calendar.
Document Family
All parts of a group of documents that are connected to each other for purposes of communication; e.g. an email and its attachments.
ECM
Enterprise Content Management System
e-Disclosure
The eDiscovery process as it is practiced in the European Union.
Electronic discovery
ediscovery, e-discovery. The process of identifying, preserving, collection, preparing, reviewing and producing ESI in the context of a legal or investigative process.
Electronic evidence
Information that is stored in an electronic format. This is used to prove or disprove the facts of a legal matter.
Email
An electronic communication sent or received via a data application designed for that purpose (e.g. MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, Google Gmail).
ESI
Electronically stored information.
Et Al.
An abbreviation of et alia meaning and other persons.
Exhibit
A paper, document or other object produced and exhibited to a court during a trial or hearing and, on being accepted, is marked for identification or admitted in evidence.
Filtering
The process of applying specific parameters to remove groups of documents that do not fit those parameters, in order to reduce the volume of the data set, e.g. date ranges and keywords.
First Paper
Paper instituting the action (e.g., Summons, Motion, Infants's Compromise).
Forensics
The handling of ESI including collection, examination and analysis, in a manner that ensures its authenticity, so as to provide for its admission as evidence in a court of law.
FRCP
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the rules that govern ediscovery and other aspects of the civil legal process.

GC
General Counsel
HaaS
Hardware as a Service
Hash
An algorithm that generates a unique value for each document. It is referred to as a digital fingerprint and is used to authenticate documents and to identify duplicate documents.
Hearing
A preliminary examination where testimony is given and evidence presented for the purpose of determining an issue of fact and reaching a decision on the basis of that evidence.
IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service
ILTA
International Legal Technology Association
Image (Drive)
To make an identical copy of a drive including its empty space. ”mirror image“
Image (File)
To make a picture copy of a document. The most common image formats in ediscovery are tiff and pdf.
Indemnity
Security against loss or damages, exemption from penalty or liability owned by another party; amount paid as compensation under an indemnity agreement.
Injunction
A court order for a party to stop doing or to start doing a specific act.

Judgment
A determination of the rights of the parties in an action or special proceeding. A judgment shall refer to and state the result of a verdict or decision, may or may not recite the circumstances on which it is based.
Jurisdiction
The geographical, subject matter, and monetary limitations of a court’s authority.
Legacy Data
Data whose format has become obsolete.
Legal Hold
A communication requesting the preservation of information that is potentially relevant to current or a reasonably anticipated legal matter and the resulting preservation.
Liability
An obligation to do, to eventually do, or to refrain from doing something; money owed; or according to law one's responsibility for his/her conduct; or one's responsibility for causing an injury or damage to property.
Litigant
Party to a legal action.
Load File
A file used to import data into an ediscovery system. It defines document parameters for imaged documents and often contains metadata for all ESI it relates to.

Media
The device used to store electronic information, e.g. hard drives, back up tapes, DVDs.
Memorandum Decision
A written opinion or decision of a court on a litigated question, giving the court’s conclusion on factual and legal issues (this may constitute the order of the court if so stated).
Memorandum Opinion
Memorandum in writing, which is a very brief statement of the reasons for a decision, without detailed explanation.
Metadata
Often referred to as data about data, it is the information that describes the characteristics of ESI, e.g. sender, recipient, author, date. Much of the metadata is not accessible to non–technical users.
Minutes
A record of court proceedings kept by noting significant events.
Motion
An oral or written request to the court made by a party for a ruling or order.
Native Format
A file that is maintained in the format in which it was created. This format preserves metadata and details about the data that might be lost when the documents are converted to image format, e.g. pivot tables in spreadsheets.
Near–duplicate
Two or more files that contain a specified percentage of similarity. Also, the process used to identify those nearly–identical files.
Negligence
Conduct which falls below the standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm, the breach of a duty of care.
Normalization
Reformatting data so that it is stored in a standardized format.
OCR
Optical Character Recognition is the process of converting images of printed pages into electronic text.
On Prem
On Premises Solution
Order
An oral or written direction of a court or judge.

PaaS
Platform as a Service
P or Pp
Page
Parent Document
A document to which other documents/files are attached.
Party
Person having a direct interest in a legal matter, transaction or proceeding.
Petition
A formal written request to a court; also used to initiate a special proceeding.
Plaintiff
The party bringing a civil action or making a claim.
Pleadings
Complaint or petition, answer, and reply.
Precedent
Previous judgment or court decision on a same or similar point, serving as a rule or example for guidance in the present action.
Precision
In search results analysis, precision is the measure of the level of relevance to the query in the results set of documents. See Recall
Predictive Coding
A document categorization process that extrapolates the tagging decisions of an expert reviewer across a data set. It is an iterative process that increases accuracy with multiple training passes.
Proceeding
The succession of events constituting the process by which judicial action is invoked and utilized pursuant to procedure and brought to completion.
Processing
The ediscovery workflow which ingests data, extracts text and metadata, and normalizes the data. Some systems include the data indexing and de–duplication in their processing workflow.
Production
The delivery, to the requesting party, of documents and ESI that meet the criteria of the discovery request.
Realization Rates
Measure the difference between what you record as time and what percentage of that time is paid by the client.
Recall
In search results analysis, recall is the measure of the percentage of total number of relevant documents in the corpus returned in the results set. See Precision
Redact
To edit, revise or block out written text. To intentionally conceal, usually via an overlay, portions of a document considered privileged, proprietary or confidential
Relief
Legal remedy, such as damages, injunction or declaration of rights.
Remittitur
Legal process by which an appellate court transmits to the court below the proceedings before it, together with its decision, for such further action and entry of judgment as is required by the decision of the appellate court.
Reply
A plaintiff𔄣s response to a defendant's answer when the answer contains a counterclaim.
Respondent
One who formally answers the allegations stated in a petition which has been filed with the court. Also known as a defendant in a civil action.
Restore/Reinstate to Calendar
To place back on the calendar as an active case.

SaaS
Software as a Service
Sanction
A penalty or punishment provided as a means of enforcing obedience to a law, rule or code; also, an authorization or approval.
Search
The process of looking within a data set using specific criteria (a query). There are several types of search ranging from simple keyword to concept searches that identify documents related to the query even when the query term is not present in the document.
Sequester
To separate, set apart, hold aside for safekeeping or awaiting some determination; jurors are sequestered when not permitted to return home until the case is closed; also applies to property.
Slack Space
The unused portion of a disk that exists when the data does not completely fill the space allotted for it. This space can be examined for otherwise unavailable data.
Spoliation
The destruction or alteration of data that might be relevant to a legal matter.
Statute of Limitations
The time limit for asserting a claim set by statute.
Structured Data
Data stored in a structured format such as a database. Structured data can create challenges in ediscovery. See Unstructured Data
Subpoena
Legal process which commands a witness to appear and testify.
Subsequent Proceedings
Any proceeding or action taken with respect to a specific case after it has been filed with the court.
Suit
A legal action or proceeding.
Summons
A form used to commence a civil action and acquire jurisdiction over a party.
Supplementary Proceedings
Further inquiry, under court jurisdiction, after entry of judgment, to determine means for enforcing the judgment against judgment debtor.
Testimony
An oral declaration made by a witness or party under oath.
TIFF
Tagged Image Format is a common graphic file format. The file extension related to this format is .tif.
Tort
An injury or wrong committed, either with or without force, and either intentionally or negligently, to the person or property of another.
Trial
The formal examination of a legal controversy in court so as to determine the issue.
Unallocated Space
Most often, this is space created on a hard drive when a file is marked for deletion. This space is no longer allocated to a specific file. Until it is overwritten, it still contains the previous data and can often be retrieved.
Unicode
The code standard that provides for uniform representation of character sets for all languages. It is also referred to as double-byte language.
Unstructured Data
Data that is not stored in a structured format such as word processing documents and presentations. See Structured Data

Venue
(a) Geographical place where some legal matter occurs or may be determined. (b) The geographical area within which a court has jurisdiction. It relates only to a place or territory within which either party may require a case to be tried. A defect in venue may be waived by the parties.
Verdict
The determination of a jury on the facts and, usually, the legal consequences of those facts.
Warrant
A written order directing the arrest of a person issued by an authority ‐ warrants are ”issued“, ”executed“ or ”canceled“.
Writ
An order issuing from a court of justice and requiring the performance of a specified act, or giving authority and commission to have it done.