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77 I L T A N E T . O R G administrative leadership email accounts (34%) even following departure (20%). However, email retention practices have been improved for firms reporting that mature IG programs are in place. 31% have unlimited retention applied to current attorney email accounts, and the indefinite maintenance of departed attorney email accounts has been reduced slightly to 27%. It should come as no surprise that the common practice of not deleting emails extends to email archives, where the most common retention schedule adopted by law firms is unlimited. these topics in outside counsel guidelines. Complicating matters, a significant percentage of large and small firms (42%) indicated they currently have no strategy for limiting data sprawl, and they have not applied retention to electronic files in direct conflict with client wishes in OCGs. Responses regarding what to keep and for how long differed significantly. The most common retention schedules law firms adopt for lawyer email accounts is no retention or unlimited retention (47%). This extends to maintaining former lawyer email accounts indefinitely (33%), and no data purge applied to support staff and issue and associated risks. Fortunately, only 17% of firms with mature IG programs report this "Wild West" network share drive situation, with 67% forcing client/matter folder taxonomy at matter opening and another 8% not permitting the creation of these workspaces. Also, a substantial percentage of firms mention challenges related to unstructured information in network shares, email accounts, and the inability to collaborate effectively (33%) or apply ethical walls (15%) outside the document management system. These challenges suggest that firms strive to streamline information management for improved collaboration and security compliance. These values are also significantly lower in firms having a hybrid paper/electronic IG program (18% and 6%, respectively), due in all likelihood to their more mature IG program and information appropriately profiled in the DMS, where collaboration can take place while appropriate access rights are applied. RETENTION Additionally, regardless of how well a firm's data is structured, retention constantly struggles. Retention is relevant to many data repositories, including document management systems, eDiscovery databases, network shares, extranet file shares, lawyer, administrative, support staff email accounts, email archives, and more. Likewise, clients communicate their concerns over retention practices by prescribing FEATURES

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