Digital evidence does not interpret itself. A forensic collection or a government production can contain thousands of documents, hundreds of thousands of messages, months of location data, and years of communications — and none of it tells the attorney anything until someone analyzes it.

Discovery analysis is that work. Taking what exists in a production or extraction and turning it into answers. What happened. In what order. Who knew what and when. What the data says about the case and what it does not say. Whether the production covers everything it is supposed to cover.

We have conducted discovery analysis in criminal defense, criminal prosecution, civil litigation, and military courts-martial — in more than 1,300 matters spanning murder, CSAM, sexual assault, corporate fraud, insurance litigation, family law, trucking, and employment disputes. The questions attorneys need answered are similar across all of them. We find the answers.

Was everything produced

The first question in any discovery matter is whether the production is complete. A court order compelling discovery defines what must be provided. A forensic eye on what was produced can identify whether the order was followed.

We review productions for internal consistency — whether the metadata reflects what the cover letter claims, whether document families are intact or have members missing, whether communication threads show gaps that suggest incomplete production, whether the date ranges actually cover the period at issue. An incomplete production is a discovery violation. Identifying it requires knowing what a complete production looks like and what the signs of truncation, cherry-picking, or selective withholding look like in the data.

For matters involving a disputed PDF, a defensible PDF forensic report begins with the native file, not only a printed or flattened copy.

We have reviewed productions where the document family structure revealed missing attachments. Where email threads showed reply chains with no corresponding originals. Where metadata fields indicated documents existed inside the produced date range that were not included. The completeness of a production is not something the attorney can evaluate by reading the documents. It requires examining the structure behind them.

How good or bad is the case

Before an attorney can advise a client on settlement, plea, or trial, they need to know what the digital evidence actually shows. Not what the other side says it shows. What it shows.

We read the evidence and give attorneys a direct assessment. What the communications establish. What the location data supports and what it does not. Where the data is ambiguous and where it is unambiguous. Which facts the opposing party can prove from the digital record and which they cannot. What the client’s own data does to their position.

That assessment is not a report for its own sake. It is the factual foundation the attorney needs to make the next decision — and the decision after that.

Communication maps

In cases involving multiple parties — business disputes, conspiracy charges, trafficking matters, corporate fraud investigations — the communications record is a network. Who contacted whom. How often. By what channel. At what times. In what sequence relative to the events at issue.

We build communication maps from the data in a production or extraction. A communication map makes the network visible. It shows relationships between parties that the raw message log does not make legible at scale. It identifies the central figures in a communication network, the frequency and timing of contact between specific parties, and the channels each pair used — phone calls, texts, email, encrypted messaging, social media.

In fraud matters, the communication map often tells the story before a single message is read. The pattern of contact between co-defendants, between defendants and victims, and between defendants and financial intermediaries establishes the structure of the scheme in a form that is explainable to a jury.

Usage and communication patterns

Individual behavior over time — what a person was doing on their device, when, and for how long — is one of the most underused categories of digital evidence. The pattern of life databases on a phone or computer establish a baseline of normal behavior against which the period around an alleged event can be compared.

We build usage timelines from device activity logs, app usage records, and communication histories. A person who normally texts their spouse several times per day and went silent for a four-hour window on a specific date has a usage pattern that requires explanation. A phone that shows no location movement during a period when its owner claims to have been somewhere else has an activity record that supports or contradicts that claim without relying on any single data point.

Communication patterns within a business dispute can show who was driving decisions, who was excluded from key conversations, and when the dynamics of a business relationship changed. Those patterns are often more valuable than any individual email in a case that turns on the question of what the parties understood their agreement to be.

Timelines

Most cases are ultimately about sequence. What happened first. What followed. What the parties knew at each step and what they did not know yet.

We build timelines from the digital record — cross-referencing device activity, communications, location data, document creation and modification timestamps, cloud activity logs, and any other time-stamped data source in the production. A digital timeline drawn from multiple corroborating sources is significantly more difficult to dispute than a narrative assembled from documents alone, because the timestamps are not testimonial. They are logged by the device at the moment of the event.

In civil litigation, the timeline establishes when each party knew what — relevant to notice, to the formation and breach of obligations, and to damages. In criminal matters, the timeline answers where the client was, what they were doing, and what their device recorded about that period. In both contexts, the timeline built from digital evidence is the spine that the rest of the case runs along.

What we analyze

Email productions from any platform — text, metadata, threading, and document family completeness
Mobile device extractions — communications, location, app activity, health data, and usage records across iOS and Android
Cloud account productions — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, iCloud, and major cloud storage platforms
Text and messaging platform data — native SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, Snapchat, Telegram, and others
Computer forensic productions — file activity, browser history, document metadata, and operating system artifact data
CDR and location records — carrier data cross-referenced against device location and other fixed-time events

Criminal and civil applications

The analysis capabilities are the same regardless of which side of the case the attorney is on or whether the matter is criminal or civil.

Criminal defense attorneys use discovery analysis to assess the government’s evidence before making trial decisions, identify gaps and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s digital record, and find data in their client’s own devices that supports the defense theory.

Prosecution teams and civil attorneys on either side use the same analysis to assess the strength of the evidence they have, identify what the opposing party’s production is missing, and build the factual record that supports their claims.

The data does not know which side retained us. Like a metadata timestamp, it tells the truth whether anyone wants to hear it or not. Our job is to make sure the attorney knows what that is before it matters in court.

Related services and litigation support

Contact Cyber Agents to discuss whether discovery analysis fits your matter.

Discovery Analysis