Litigation Readiness
Electronic documents (e-documents) are becoming the dominant form of evidence requested for civil and criminal litigation purposes.
According to an online article from LAW.COM, more than 90 percent of new business records are created electronically, and 40 percent of them are never converted to paper.
Electronic evidence is the predominant form of discovery today. We also have growing evidence that many organizations are unprepared for litigation or criminal prosecution in the digital age. Organizations respond, but often in a disorganized and hasty fashion, which adds cost and risk to the operation.
Preparations for Litigation Readiness
- Is there someone in the IT department familiar enough with the rules of civil (or criminal) procedure who can accurately capture and produce a computer file that can be entered into evidence without a charge of spoliation?
- Is there an attorney on the in-house corporate legal staff (or outside counsel) who can accurately describe the organization's IT architecture and explain it?
- Does you organization have a clearly articulated document retention policy that takes into account all regulatory mandates and is strictly enforced?
If you answered "No" to any of these questions, you may not be properly prepared.
Organizations are now understanding the importance of not waiting for an electronic information request. They actively audit, monitor and police their organization to enforce ongoing compliance and take immediate action when needed in order to avoid expensive legal proceedings. Therefore, in terms of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), there is a great need for fully integrated solutions for information management, identification, preservation, collection, processing, review, analysis and production
Most organizations will turn to outside experts or service providers to fulfill e-discovery requests. Long-term, the costs associated with e-discovery can be mitigated by developing and enforcing meaningful information management policies and implementing content management technology.
The ultimate solution to controlling the costs of unstructured content (for example, word documents, e-mail and spreadsheets) is having a records retention program and applying a policy to unstructured content. The principal objective of this series of research notes is to provide IT advice on how the organization can prepare for the day when an evidentiary request arrives. Some of the systems, policies and procedures we suggest will do more than prepare the organization for addressing litigation or prosecution. Used wisely, these suggestions can also improve overall corporate performance.