The legal process of identifying, collecting, preserving, and reviewing electronically stored information (ESI)—such as emails, documents, and database logs—for court litigation or investigations.

Brandished by legal SaaS vendors to inflate basic file keyword search scripts into multi-million dollar litigation support infrastructure.

• Litigation Markup: Slapping "eDiscovery" onto basic text search tools to charge double to legal departments.
• Corporate Fear Posture: Using legal investigation vocabulary to sell routine cloud document archiving tools.
• House-Cleaning Reality Check: Like searching your email inbox for an old receipt and calling it "home eDiscovery."

Dark Waters (2010s) scene where attorneys order rooms full of archived corporate paper files and electronic floppy disks, painstakingly sifting through digital and physical records for court evidence.

Searching and collecting electronic records and emails for legal investigations or court cases.

“Deploying automated eDiscovery software cuts review time during regulatory audits.”

“We used specialized search software to pull all employee emails related to the contract dispute for our lawyers.”