Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | I N F O R M A T I O N G O V E R N E N C E 36 The cost of digital storage adds up, especially when you are keeping terabytes of data that you actually no longer need—whether the data is stored in the cloud where your firm pays by the gigabyte or on-premises where your IT department is responsible for maintaining the hardware, software and security infrastructure and paying for power, cooling and all the physical overhead associated with digital storage. Retaining electronic records beyond the time required also significantly increases your firm's exposure to legal, regulatory, financial and reputational risks. Today, the inability to demonstrate rigorous policies and procedures for electronic disposition could disqualify your firm during an RFP process, as prospective clients start to ask tougher questions about law firm information governance. Even if you do manage to get by through the initial screening process, your failure to properly dispose of electronic records could come to light during a subsequent audit. Isn't it time to address the information elephant in the room? But where do you even begin? Surveying the Information Elephant The first step is to understand the landscape of electronic information within the firm. For most firms, the scale of the challenge is enormous. The reality is that at the same time that law firms adopted their first document management systems, they also started using file shares, often resulting in a proliferation of unstructured and unmanaged data throughout the firm. A large volume of client matter information also typically resides in email. Many IT departments attempt to impose email quotas as a means of gaining control—only to be met with lawyer rebellion or the de facto creation of yet another electronic archive that will need to be searched in the future. In truth, it's not just one elephant; it's a herd. Most firms today store client matter information electronically across multiple repositories and business systems. Without a clear understanding of what information the firm has, where it resides and how it flows, it is impossible to enforce effective information governance. Mapping all the electronic data repositories within the firm usually requires dedicated resources including internal project team members, as well as external consultants tasked with surveying each practice group and department. Getting "neutral" third-party consultants involved often can help in gathering detailed information about current practices and providing an objective analysis of any gaps. Reviewing the Rules (and Comparing with Reality) Reviewing your firm's information governance policies—particularly with regard to the classification of information, as well as retention and disposition— is essential. An assessment of how well the firm is following its own policies can help in determining whether and how current processes need to be adjusted and/or whether the policies themselves need to change. Many firms find that IG policies are in need of a periodic update to take into account evolving legal and regulatory requirements, the shift over time from paper to electronic documents, the aftermath of mergers and acquisitions over time involving firms with different approaches to records retention, other organizational changes within the firm and the complexity of the constellation of business systems in use. Firm leaders themselves, when presented with the business case for a more rigorous approach to electronic disposition, may also change their stance on "keeping everything" and agree to decrease the firm's standard retention periods if they are excessively long. In addition, firms today contend with the proliferation of outside counsel guidelines issued by clients, often specifying different requirements with regard to retention. Firms need to ensure that they have processes in place to evaluate and capture client- specific requirements centrally, to ensure that the firm is not agreeing to problematic, unreasonable or conflicting demands and to avoid noncompliance due to lack of visibility. Strategic Approaches to Automating Disposition Once you have a clearer understanding of all the information repositories within your firm and the relevant retention requirements defined by your firm's IG policy as well as client policies, work with key stakeholders to define a strategy to identify and eliminate the backlog of electronic records that T H E E L E P H A N T I N T H E R O O M : T H E H I D D E N C O S T S A N D R I S K S O F E L E C T R O N I C R E C O R D S R E T E N T I O N

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