There’s a new survey/report out from AIIM on storage decisions and enterprise content management. Unless you’re an AIIM member, you can only read the executive summary, but here’s the press release that has a little more info.
According to the survey that forms the basis of this report, the reasons records managers want to improve enterprise content management in their organizations are:
1. insuring business continuity (41.2% characterize this as a "critical or extremely important factor")
2. providing access to information across the organization (40.8%)
3. reducing litigation risks (38.8%)
John Mancini, President of AIIM, points to email archives as one area needing serious attention:
Many organizations surveyed have not yet begun to address the most significant and obvious source of potential document-related challenge in their organizations -- e-mail. Most organizations continue to either view e-mail archiving as simply the creation of massive and uncontrolled back-ups or they don't archive e-mail at all. There continues to be a 'negative lottery' mentality among large numbers of end-users related to those organizations that have been 'caught' in embarrassing legal proceedings involving the mismanagement of electronic information. There is an awareness of vulnerability, but many end-users still feel, 'this could never happen to us.'
The likelihood of going to court might be slim, but if the unthinkable happens, the IT department may be front and center.
The two proposals are specifically targeted at electronic discovery. First, the proposed amendments to Rule 26 will require attorneys for both parties to a litigation in Federal court to sit down prior to the proceedings to discuss their clients’ document management systems. That’s right; you read that correctly.
The rule also requires each company to designate a spokesperson for its IT group. This is the first time the courts are bringing IT directly into litigation, according to Trent Dickey, attorney with Sills, Cummis, Epstein & Gross.
Next up, Rule 37(f), also called a safe harbor rule, says that corporations that have lost information but have otherwise acted in good faith cannot be sanctioned. Congress is expected to take action on this rule, one way or the other, by December 2006.
It is probably easiest to comprehend the importance of the changes to Rules 26 and 37(f) by looking at what happens when you don’t manage documents properly. In Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, the judge instructed the jury that it was legitimate to presume that the information Warburg could not provide due to lost backup tapes and e-mails was probably damaging to the company’s case. Zubulake was awarded $20 million.
I’ve been sitting on this idea for a few weeks, so I’m not sure it’s still in play. Katrina inspired many organizations to update their document storage and backup plans. How much more likely is a law suit?
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