Peer to Peer Magazine

20 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | FALL 2017 CASE STUDIES Double Team: Working Together on Information Governance When responsibilities expand for a role, team or department, it is wise to reexamine the definition and scope. Besides the records staff, our Records and Information Governance (RIG) group has two primary supporting teams: the data management team and the knowledge resources team. The alignment of these two teams within the RIG group has provided us with the resources and structure to tackle diverse and complex projects and move our IG program forward in a way that syncs with end-user needs. Our Strategy As we expanded our program to incorporate the governance of electronic content, we created the data management team to address retention and disposition. This team handles most of the data migration projects we are working on, and it has access to the various firm repositories where legacy content resides. The team understands end-user needs and is specifically adept at accurately moving large amounts of data. The existence of such a team is common and adds to the success of any information governance program. Our firm has had a knowledge resources (KR) team for many years, comprised mostly of team members with law degrees. This team oversees various firm resources, including electronic closing binders, our collection of key know-how (i.e., the Knowledge Bank), referral systems and a collection of legal opinions. Although the existence of such a team and its seat in RIG might not be as common, its core remit is content management—a vital part of information governance. The KR team is in the direct purview of information governance. This team is primarily responsible for identifying and recommending solutions for, and continuous improvements to, the classification, storage, security, retrieval, tracking, archiving and deletion of various knowledge collections. Gartner's definition of information governance includes "the processes, roles and policies, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals." The oversight of such repositories inherently involves significant content management, particularly focusing on associated processes and procedures. by Leigh Isaacs and Jessica Marlee Double Team: Working Together on Information Governance Information governance has evolved significantly over the years, and arguably more than any other law firm department. IG intersects with such a plethora of law firm operations components that our responsibilities keep expanding—and rightfully so, since the information produced continues to increase exponentially.

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