Public draft | Versioned conformance standard
A measurable standard for collaborative evidence preservation and reconstruction.¶
Reconstruction-Grade eDiscovery (RGR) is a public draft standard for assessing whether collaborative evidence can be preserved and later reproduced with point-in-time fidelity, relationship integrity, and bounded evidence handling. It gives legal, operational, technical, and market evaluators a versioned framework for testing claims against published criteria.
Version
Public and versioned¶
Published with release history, canonical text, and a downloadable PDF so claims can be tied to a version.
Evaluation
Measurable and testable¶
Section 6, Appendix B, and the toolkit turn the standard into comparable questions, scoring logic, and conformance checks.
Governance
Visible and open¶
Normative changes, participation paths, and version transparency are public from the start.
What Reconstruction-Grade means
Four measurable preservation targets, not abstract aspiration.¶
Section 6 and Appendix B define the detailed requirements and conformance tests. At a high level, Reconstruction-Grade rests on four core expectations.
Point-in-time fidelity¶
Relevant messages, referenced content, and states can be reproduced at the event time rather than replaced with a later state.
Relationship integrity¶
Message, link, file, version, participant, permission, and timeline relationships remain traceable over time.
Bounded evidence handling¶
Identity, audit, repository, and behavior evidence is preserved where possible, with platform or retention limits declared explicitly.
Reproducible outputs¶
Outputs can be regenerated with manifest traceability, hashes, exception handling, and declared scope tied to a specific standard version.
Conformance claims should cite a published version, stated scope, and the artifacts or tests supporting the claim.
How to use it
Use the standard as a versioned evaluation framework.¶
The standard supports platform review, workflow design, procurement, and expert evaluation. The toolkit helps turn it into repeatable comparison work.
1
Read the standard¶
Start with the front matter, evaluation framework, and requirements to understand the targets and definitions.
2
Use the vendor questions¶
Apply Appendix G to test how a platform explains versioning, audit coverage, relationship handling, and exceptions.
3
Use the scoring worksheet¶
Apply Appendix H so platform comparisons stay anchored to the same measurable criteria.
4
Compare versioned declarations¶
Request a declaration against a specific standard version and compare it to the published conformance framework, not sales language.
Who this is for
The same evidence problem, different evaluator contexts.¶
RGR is written as a standard, not a persona exercise. The same preservation and reconstruction requirements apply whether the evaluator is legal, operational, technical, or market-facing.
General Counsel and Litigation — Assess what a platform can and cannot reproduce before protocol commitments.
eDiscovery and Legal Operations — Compare tools and workflows using explicit questions and scoring methods instead of ad hoc criteria.
Enterprise Compliance, IT, and Governance — Connect preservation needs to identity history, access records, and repository architecture.
Vendors and Service Providers — Declare capability and limits against a neutral framework instead of proprietary benchmarks.
Analysts, Evaluators, and Market Observers — Frame market capability using measurable criteria, not isolated product claims.
Governance and participation
Open governance, versioned changes, public participation.¶
The standard is designed to evolve as a vendor-independent effort with documented change control. Normative changes follow a proposal-and-review process. Enterprises, law firms, providers, vendors, and individual practitioners can participate.
Review governance Participation options
This standard does not itself create legal duties or imply that non-conforming workflows are per se deficient. It defines measurable preservation targets, including bounded evidence handling when full determinism is not available. Case-specific judgments about scope, proportionality, and process remain necessary.
Version, transparency, and quick links