Email in many ways has become the ultimate corporate communication tool. I’ve recently rolled out a BPM solution where I work and as I’ve been demo’ing the application, I’m constantly asked if the tool will email everyone involved in the project. And while it is possible I stress that the tool is not a replacement for picking up the phone and speaking… collaborating… understanding! Another example… the people I support in Asia have 10’s of GBs worth of emails… dating back 10 or more years. Why? To cover their bottoms! I think the need to cover one’s bottom is pervasive in many corporate cultures… and thus email is the perfect tool. Now one has it in writing, one can receive delivered and read notifications too!

Just picture it… “There’s no denying you read my emails!” as I slap down a stack of printed copies like Perry Mason.

I bring up Perry Mason because like it or not we are a very litigious society! We sue over the smallest thing! Some rightfully so, other suits… ahh not so much! E-discovery has become a big thing. In American law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties and can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena (wikipedia.org, 2010). Therefore e-discovery is the production of electronic evidence, which can include… IM chats transcripts, excel/word documents, PDFs, web pages, source code, databases, graphic files or in our case emails. Not only does the defendant have to produce these documents, they need to provide complete records and in a timely fashion. If the defendant does not comply accordingly, many jurors perceive this as… “They have something to hide.” These documents are required to be preserved. Additionally, the company needing to disclose these documents needs to provide a document detailing the extent of the search they conducted.

E-Discovery is no small matter and requires a great deal of attention to adequately produce relevant documents. Systems need to be put into place to ensure e-discovery compliance. These systems include a stated policy on the retention of email distributed within a company. Centralizing data is another way to minimize the efforts required to comply with discovery demands. Additionally, organizing the data and providing mechanisms to rapidly search documents for specific keywords across the entire enterprise. Maintaining strong access controls over your data is essential to providing strong evidence! If a lawyer can prove that you didn’t have full control over your data, they can then argue that the data could have been tampered with reducing its credibility in court.

Ultimately, being able to produce evidence in a timely fashion helps your credibility in court. Noncompliance can be costly as well! Fines and other legal sanctions can be placed upon an organization that fails to “protect” its data!

Resources:

Various, (2010, February 9th), Discovery (law), Retrieved on February 23rd, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(law)