Ben Franklin once famously said, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” As we’ve seen since the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) in 2006, litigation should be included in that discussion as well. In today’s age of regulation and litigation, we really only have two types of companies, those that have been sued and those that will be sued. The massive changes that were made back in 2006 to the FRCP and the ever-expanding volume of data have lead to explosive growth within the field of e-Discovery, with no signs of it slowing down any time soon. Some of the market drivers that have helped fuel this growth include: the enormous volume of Electronically Stored Information (ESI), the expanded type of evidence subject to discovery, the proliferation of data throughout organizations and across devices, not to mention the increased regulation and litigation workload.
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Workers collaborate every day. While sitting at their desks, they pick up the phone, yell over the wall, send an email or fire off a quick IM. They sit down in meetings and go back and forth for hours. They gather at the water cooler and discuss ideas. They get the answer they are looking for and move on to the next task where they repeat the steps again. I’m not saying facetoface conversations and meetings aren’t valuable; however they typically aren’t necessary and as productive as most companies believe. Meetings have their place, at the right time in the process.
Now, enter the new employee or the additional personnel that you just added to your project. They weren’t there for the conversation over the wall and can’t see your emails. They also weren’t in the meeting listening to the back and forth conversation that ultimately led to a group decision. What if you had a place to store all this information and have your discussions in a virtual environment? What if yourr employees were able to:
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The recent post Information Management is the Key mentioned several steps that are recommended to help organizations effectively handle legal discovery. Additionally, it covers vital data requests such as subpoenas, governmental inquiries or even internal investigations. This post will provide some more detail on how these steps should be implemented to reduce disruption and improve efficiency. This advice should be particularly useful for companies whose processes are missing or haphazard at best.
The primary point to remember is that organizations need to be proactive in setting up policy. Tools, plans and personnel should already be in-place and well tested to minimize disorder when the company is involved in a lawsuit or record request and needs to collect, cull and produce data quickly and efficiently.
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Legal changes have brought a new level of challenge to IT administrators and corporate compliance officers in the last several years. In an era of HIPAA rules and Sarbanes-Oxley regulation, defining and enforcing formal document retention policies is critical for maintaining regulatory compliance and preparing for potential litigation. The Sarbances-Oxley act is particularly stringent, making it a crime to alter or destroy documents, including electronic documents and communication, that might be relevant during litigation or official proceedings. This includes information stored not just on a company’s file servers and workstations, but also data residing on laptops and other portable devices.
The goal of an effective document retention policy is to maintain records that are necessary for timely business conduct and for legal compliance(official correspondence, financial statements, personnel records, contracts, etc.), while shedding outdated and business-irrelevant material, such as personal correspondence, document drafts, etc. In some industries, business-relevant data must be maintained for as long as 7 years. And in the event of legal proceedings, ALL destruction of documents, including electronic communication, must immediately STOP. Severe penalties have been imposed on organizations that have failed to protect data needed for e-Discovery, even when the disposal of potential evidence has been inadvertent.
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If you’ve heard the rumors, they are true – Mail Attender v5.0 is currently being developed and will be released this summer! Mail Attender is a comprehensive tool for Microsoft Exchange email management. In addition to getting a facelift, Mail Attender v5.0 is going to have three major enhancements.
First, Mail Attender v5.0 will have full Exchange 2013 support. Although Exchange 2013 is relatively new, we have heard from several organizations that are planning to migrate. If you are one of them, rest assured you can use Mail Attender to help you manage the data. Additionally, you will have the same flexibility with Mail Attender that you see now. Since Mail Attender treats users’ mailbox and online archive as separate stores, you have the ability to apply different rules to those stores. For instance, if you want the Inbox for the mailbox to have a two year retention policy but the online archive Inbox to have a five year retention policy, Mail Attender can easily achieve these tasks.
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Sherpa Software had a great time talking about our new Data Decryption services as well as our other Notes products last week in Missouri at the 4th annual IamLUG meeting; not only did we get a chance to talk shop with the attendees, but our infamous “Beanie” hats made a huge comeback, as well.
Lotus User sports Sherpa’s infamous beanie at IamLUG
The turnout at the show was very nice and the attendees all seemed engaged in discussions, demos and or course, Sherpa had the ever popular prize wheel. We saw a lot of new faces throughout the week and some familiar ones, which made the trip well worthwhile.
We would like to extend a big thank you to the organizers of the show and those whom attended. Sherpa will be attending MWLUG in August, as well, so if you happen to be planning to head to Union Station, stop by our table and say hello. Thanks for another great year at IamLUG!
St. Louis welcomed Lotus Users to this year’s IamLUG conference.
If you'd like to learn more, please contact a Sherpa representative at information@sherpasoftware.com or 1.800.255.5155
