The global legal labyrinth of rules and regulations governing the use and retention of information continues to expand. Added to the increased scrutiny is the reality of an increasingly complex, information-rich environment. The emerging worlds of social media, cloud computing, collaborative work environments and virtualization are illustrative of how the world of information – its generation, transmission, receipt, storage and retrieval – continues to evolve at a significant pace. 

All of these changes involve risks which, if mishandled, can lead to front page headlines and significant unbudgeted costs, as well as potential fines or criminal sanctions. We help our clients understand these changes and meet the challenges of defensible information management strategies, policies and execution. Our approach to this area brings records management policies in line with best practices for organizations, such as ISO 15489, The Sedona Guidelines (2005; 2007) and ARMA International’s “GARP” (Generally Accepted Retention Principles) initiative, as well as existing legislative and regulatory mandates. We also focus on guidance provided by courts, such the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Arthur Andersen v. United States, 125 S. Ct. 2129 (2005).  Our teams can assess and identify your organization’s potential for:

• Elevated risks of regulatory noncompliance
• Unnecessary/extraordinary costs of meeting regulatory or litigation requests
• Inefficient business processes related to information management. 

Common areas of risk we have encountered and address include:

• Dormant programs (no resources, budget or C-level support)
• No interdisciplinary connections or coordination (IT, Legal, Records Management, Compliance, Business Units)
• Outdated policies (e.g., failure to address electronic documents)
• Outdated records schedules
• Unintelligible/impractical records schedules
• Significant orphaned/legacy data inventories
• Lack of standards and procedures for back-up media
• Lack of education and training programs/resources
• Inadequate data security procedures  

We work with our clients to address these issues, providing practical advice in the following areas:  

• Records and Information Management Programs
• Creating or updating policy and procedures documentation
• Reviewing and consolidating retention schedules
• Advice regarding national and international privacy and data protection issues
• Counsel regarding electronic health records
• Records and Information Management “RIM” issues related to technology implementations 
• Developing a sustainable documentation of pertinent data applications and storage locations for legal and RIM purposes
• Providing strategic guidance to organizations addressing the legal and business risks associated with technology procurement and implementation
• Comprehensive evaluation of litigation, RIM/compliance and data privacy risks associated with a given technology
• Broad range of experience with existing and emerging technologies such as e-mail, web content (internet, intranet, Web 2.0 and social applications), collaboration technologies, enterprise systems, cloud computing, text messaging, instant messaging and voicemail/VOIP
• "RIM" issues related to Legacy Data Remediation
• Counsel regarding the storage and disposition of legacy data
• Developing a custom workflow/framework that can be efficiently applied to analyze whether such orphaned or legacy data must be retained or can be defensibly destroyed
• Counsel on/evaluation of content management or other technology solutions to prevent future accumulation of orphaned or legacy data stores