Imagine you're a chef, and you have to make a cake. You've got all the ingredients, but they're all mixed up in a big bowl. Your sous chef asks you how much and what ingredients you have put inside the mixing bowl because he just missed it. What do you do? You take them out of the bowl one by one and start measuring them, and that's precisely what EDRM does. EDRM is an electronic discovery reference model that breaks down electronic data into its constituent parts and then provides a set of procedures for handling those parts in the most cost-effective way possible. If you need to know how much flour is in your mix, how can you know how much water to add to it? If you need to know what flour it is (flour from wheat or rice or something else), how can you know how much water to add? So EDRM works by breaking down electronic data into its constituent parts, emails, documents, and spreadsheets and giving instructions on handling each piece. It also guides how to handle different types of information: social media posts, podcasts, voice recordings… The most important thing about EDRM is that it ensures that data is dealt with efficiently without sacrificing quality. The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) is a way of planning and executing legal discovery in an electronic format. It was developed by Tom Gelbmann and George Socha in 2005, and it's used by electronic data providers and consumers when electronic data is gathered and assimilated as part of the legal process. So, what does this mean? It means that EDRM is used by anyone involved in gathering evidence electronically, whether they're looking for it or trying to protect themselves from evidence gathered against them.