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out they become more challenging to work with. Formatting loss can also just be annoying. The most common objection to produ- cing documents in native format revolves around the disclosure of metadata. Some- times this can be a valid concern, but it' mostly not (since most metadata is sim- ply a benign property of the document). Arguably, removing some metadata from the document actually downgrades the quality of the document. Furthermore, if parties are entitled to production of a record equivalent to the original, arguably only a "native" version would satisfy that requirement. A more valid concern is that native s format documents can be volatile and subject to alteration. This can be addressed in a number of ways, usu- ally by taking the simple precaution of using a write blocker to access native files. Another solution is to place native documents within a litigation support application that can accept native docu- ments (e-docs); designed to receive documents in native format and permit the user to view them without changing them. However, not all litigation support applications have this capability. Exchanging native documents can not these applications are value" or identifying signature has been calculated for each document. A hash value is a calculator of all informa- tion about a document that services to uniquely identify each record and to indicate whether it's been changed. These hash values can also be exchanged. A load file can accompany the native documents, making it easy to load into a litigation support tool and begin work- ing with the documents right away. Documents that need to be redacted for privilege can also be exchanged in this format, so that the entire collection can be produced at once. Dera J. Nevin is the senior director, liti- gation support, and e-discovery counsel at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. A practising lawyer, she also oversees the firm's e-dis- covery operations and can be reached at dnevin@mccarthy.ca. only improve the quality of the electronic documents being exchanged by preserv- ing the full content of the records, but also lower the overall cost of production, because the step of converting the docu- ments into image formats is eliminated. However, native format exchange I get access to technologlogyy REASON #6 REASON #6 carries its own technical challenges. If you would like to exchange docu- ments natively, it's helpful to discuss this with opposing counsel so you both obtain the correct advice on technical exchange protocols. I generally recommend that native documents are exchanged in "produc- tion load file format," which links the native document with a load file. This means the native documents have been placed into a litigation support tool and processed so certain fields of metadata have been "extracted" into a database, and the textual contents of those docu- ments have been indexed for searching. A further advantage is that a "hash www.CANAD I AN Lawyermag.com SEPTEMBE R 2012 21 ntitled-5 1 12-08-07 9:45 AM only available to

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