Tweet
"electronic documents law"
(Washington, DC) December 1, 2006 - Starting Friday, US companies are required by law to store and save all employee emails, instant messages and other electronic documents.
The Supreme Court ruled companies must keep the electronic documents as possible evidence to present in court if necessary.
That information could serve as evidence if a company is sued, like in the case of Enron where employees were accused of shredding paper documents.
But the new changes may also make employees think twice before sending a message.
"People will become a lot more careful about the kinds of information they transmit electronically and they will look for other forms of anonymous communication," says Vasant Dhar of NYU Information Systems
Experts say it will be up to the judges to decide what stored information may be relevant to a case. And the changes do not clarify if personal electronic devices used for work might be subject to the same rules.
Posted 3:34pm by Logan Smith
################################################## ##################
WASHINGTON: U.S. companies will need to know more about where they store e-mail messages, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees in the event they are sued, following changes in federal rules that took effect Friday, legal experts say.
The changes, approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April after a five-year review, require companies and other parties involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of discovery, the process by which both sides share evidence before a trial.
Federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of electronic evidence in individual cases. The new rules clarify that the data will be required in federal cases.
Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely overwrites data on a backup computer tape could be committing "virtual shredding" once a lawsuit has been filed, said Alvin Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and an expert on technology and litigation.
Companies still could routinely purge their archives if the data is not relevant to cases that companies have pending or expect to face, though specific sectors like financial services remain governed by other data-retention rules.
The new rules make it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where, especially because of a provision that requires lawyers to provide information much earlier than before on where their clients' data are stored and how accessible they are.
Large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data in order to meet those deadlines, said James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton.
Besides e-mail messages, he said, companies also would need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites that are on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards.
Lawyers will have to spend time reviewing electronic documents before turning them over, Lindsay said.
Although electronic searches can help narrow the amount of data that has to be reviewed, some high- paid lawyers will still have to sift through casual e-mail messages about banal subjects to find the relevant information, he added.
But Martha Dawson, a partner at the Seattle-based law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis who specializes in electronic discovery, said that companies would not have to alter how they retain their electronic documents. Rather, she said, they will have to do an "inventory of their IT system" in order to know better where the documents are.
The new rules also provide better guidance on how electronic evidence is to be handled in federal litigation, including guidelines on how companies can seek exemptions from providing data, she said. This could actually reduce the burden of electronic discovery, she said.
(Washington, DC) December 1, 2006 - Starting Friday, US companies are required by law to store and save all employee emails, instant messages and other electronic documents.
The Supreme Court ruled companies must keep the electronic documents as possible evidence to present in court if necessary.
That information could serve as evidence if a company is sued, like in the case of Enron where employees were accused of shredding paper documents.
But the new changes may also make employees think twice before sending a message.
"People will become a lot more careful about the kinds of information they transmit electronically and they will look for other forms of anonymous communication," says Vasant Dhar of NYU Information Systems
Experts say it will be up to the judges to decide what stored information may be relevant to a case. And the changes do not clarify if personal electronic devices used for work might be subject to the same rules.
Posted 3:34pm by Logan Smith
################################################## ##################
WASHINGTON: U.S. companies will need to know more about where they store e-mail messages, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees in the event they are sued, following changes in federal rules that took effect Friday, legal experts say.
The changes, approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April after a five-year review, require companies and other parties involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of discovery, the process by which both sides share evidence before a trial.
Federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of electronic evidence in individual cases. The new rules clarify that the data will be required in federal cases.
Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely overwrites data on a backup computer tape could be committing "virtual shredding" once a lawsuit has been filed, said Alvin Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and an expert on technology and litigation.
Companies still could routinely purge their archives if the data is not relevant to cases that companies have pending or expect to face, though specific sectors like financial services remain governed by other data-retention rules.
The new rules make it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where, especially because of a provision that requires lawyers to provide information much earlier than before on where their clients' data are stored and how accessible they are.
Large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data in order to meet those deadlines, said James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton.
Besides e-mail messages, he said, companies also would need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites that are on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards.
Lawyers will have to spend time reviewing electronic documents before turning them over, Lindsay said.
Although electronic searches can help narrow the amount of data that has to be reviewed, some high- paid lawyers will still have to sift through casual e-mail messages about banal subjects to find the relevant information, he added.
But Martha Dawson, a partner at the Seattle-based law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis who specializes in electronic discovery, said that companies would not have to alter how they retain their electronic documents. Rather, she said, they will have to do an "inventory of their IT system" in order to know better where the documents are.
The new rules also provide better guidance on how electronic evidence is to be handled in federal litigation, including guidelines on how companies can seek exemptions from providing data, she said. This could actually reduce the burden of electronic discovery, she said.
Comment