Often espoused as a virtue of modern e-discovery is the ability to conduct keyword searches across data sets to save time, money and resources during the review process. However, in the FBI’s statement announcing the conclusion of the investigation into presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State, there was discussion of how Clinton’s legal team’s use of keyword searching may have resulted in the overlooking of documents relevant to the investigation.
The statement, issued and delivered by FBI Director James Comey, noted that in 2014, lawyers sorting emails for the secretary as part of the investigation relied on “header information and used search terms” in effort to “try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014.”
