The term Discovery is used to describe the beginning stage of a lawsuit where the disputing parties are required to produce relevant evidentiary material such as records, documents, and other necessary information that is related to the case.

Collecting, producing, and identifying relevant evidentiary material, which is electronically stored information (ESI) is known as e-Discovery. ESI consists of, but not restricted to, computer generated information or data of any type such as documents, databases, emails, audio files, voicemail, video files, pictures, image files, spreadsheets, social media, and web site data.

Contrary to static hardcopy evidence, ESI records are dynamic and regularly include metadata. Metadata contains information about the file such as date, time, and file properties. Metadata is generated automatically anytime a file is created, viewed, modified, sent, manipulated or deleted by the user of the file.

In modern practice, e-Discovery is quickly becoming the standard. While the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were first amended in 2006 in order to better provide for using e-Discovery. As of 2015, most states have adopted statutes and/or created court rules for using e-Discovery.

e-Discovery, has created an enormous opportunity for attorneys and their clients to calculate and more accurately predict the outcome of their legal disputes.