Facing the Changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
3. Address the most important content first. Email represents a staggering 75% of all corporate intelligence. Add to this the fact that US organizations spent a total of $5.8 billion to analyze emails for discovery purposes in 2005 and that several million dollar fines have been levied against corporations in the last few years for failure to capture, preserve and produce email; it becomes obvious that email is among the most important electronic content to an organization. In order to properly manage both live and legacy forms of this information and provide quick access when needed, many organizations implement a content archiving solution as a central repository for both email and files. Content archiving solutions optimize storage resources, reduce IT overhead and increase end-user productivity—while ensuring the long-term retention and instant retrieval of email and files in the event of a regulatory investigation or discovery request.
4. Outsource the archive process to a trusted third party. With the effective date of December 1 already past, companies need to collect and centralize their email and other electronic data as promptly as possible. Hosted or "on-demand" archiving solutions offered by third-party vendors are designed to be implemented quickly, enabling your electronic information to be organized, accessible and ready for discovery. In addition to time-to-implementation, outsourcing also allows your organization to share the risk related to electronic discovery with an "expert," and to not rely on internal resources that may not be as well trained on discovery-specific requirements. Further, an outsourced partner has the processes in place to ensure that your data is managed and disposed of in accordance with your corporate retention policies as discussed by the safe-harbor language of Rule 37. This alone can save your organization from losing or settling frivolous suits, or embarking on expensive discovery projects for data that you thought was deleted.
5. Ensure that policies established for data deletion are integrated with the archive, and that both the policy and the system allow for legal holds. Data retention policies should be integrated into the management of your archive as soon as possible. But be careful that the integration isn't so tight that exceptions can't be made; for example, in cases where an organization's internal retention policies conflict with the requirements of a lawsuit (e.g.; a company has a 90-day retention period but a case is expected to last 12 months or more). Note that in many cases, the "duty" to preserve data is triggered much earlier than when a lawsuit is initiated. For example, a company would be expected to place a legal hold on email/files related to its R&D efforts on the day a newspaper article is printed about its product defects—and not when an associated class-action suit commences.
6. Keep all unstructured electronic content with a single vendor to manage risk and limit costs. You may find that some vendors only address one or two of your data management problems. For example, one vendor who provides services around media restoration may not offer a content archiving solution that can capture and retain live data, and vice versa. This scenario is not ideal. Relying on one vendor who provides a complete offering of content archiving and electronic discovery solutions helps you to manage costs by centralizing all project management duties and data-processing tasks. Keeping your electronic data with a single trusted vendor also reduces your company's risk since it eliminates the need for your data to be accessed and processed by multiple third parties, complicating and perhaps tainting the "chain-of-custody." In short, fewer hands equates to less risk.
How ZANTAZ Can Help You Prepare
The requirements facing your organization as a result of the FRCP amendments are complex and wide-ranging. But they don't need to be intimidating if you find the right partner. ZANTAZ can help you address the key requirements brought on by the changes to the FRCP by delivering the following services:
- Tape cataloging;
- Media restoration;
- Content archiving;
- Retention management; and
Electronic discovery and litigation support.
For additional resources on FRCP and to find out how ZANTAZ can help you address the changes to FRCP, visit
www.zantaz.com/FRCP1 For more information on the meaning of "good faith", see "FRCP 37(f): What the Heck is Good Faith?" at www.zantaz.com/FRCP/.
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