E-Discovery Rule

On December 1, 2006 a Federal Ruling governing electronic discovery in civil and criminal litigation took effect.

Information Management

Electronic communication and general organizational data archiving, storage and retrieval policies/capabilities are three central areas potentially effected by the ruling.

The e discovery rule compels Business Executives, Government Leaders and IT Managers to examine data storage policies and practices, as well as recovery capabilities. The ruling potentially effects polices and procedures governing:

• Email Archiving
• Instant Message Archiving
• Data Backup
• Data Recovery

The rule does not specifically state that organizations must archive emails or IMs specifically for potential future ediscovery purposes, for example. Rather, it suggests that a) a company must make reasonable efforts to retrieve electronic data that is relevant to litigation so long as the retrieval of such data does not pose undue, unreasonable cost, b) that companies must demonstrate adherence to data preservation policies, and c) that data preservation policies and practices must not be designed to intentionally destroy evidence that may be harmful to the company if brought to light during the course of litigation.