At LegalTech 2012 in New York, many vendors showcased eDiscovery products for use in-house and in the cloud to adequately respond to eDiscovery. It seems most products still emphasize how to react when being sued.

But there was a new trend at the show this year. For the first time, visitors sought proactive information management, enterprise information archiving, legacy information clean-up, defensible disposal, data monitoring for internal investigations such as non-compliance, early fraud detection and other intelligent governance tools. The focus is shifting away from solely limiting risks and costs on specific matters, but looking to use the software for better knowledge management and to assist an organization to implement its strategic goals.

For most vendors, the marketing focus has remained squarely on  reactive eDiscovery solutions for the simple reason that these generated most revenue and closed many times faster than traditional Governance, Archival and other Information Management solutions.

But, we now see that organizations that have bought and deployed reactive eDiscovery solutions are now looking to leverage the same technology, people and skills for more proactive programs! This is especially true when the litigation work load is low, which is often the case, as litigation does not occur on a predictable timeline. There is really no excuse anymore not to use the tools and skills that one already has to limit risks and cost of risky custodians, locations and projects, let alone the benefits of less storage, less duplicates, less backup and better knowledge management.

So, finally, the only and ultimate solution to reduce eDiscovery risks and cost is being implemented: proactive eDiscovery, Governance and Information Archiving programs. All thanks to reactive eDiscovery!

I’ve just returned from another great, high-energy and exciting LegalTech conference in New York. I love that show! Large crowds of old and new friends and incredible buzz.

There was no shortage of software solutions that could be deployed either in-house or in the cloud, but the availability of eDiscovery solutions that are fully parallel with distributed Virtual Machine architectures was minimal. I predict that will be the buzz next year, as the capability makes perpetual scalability easily attainable. Some of the showcased solutions cover the entire EDRM, whereas others address just parts of it. Some vendors also provided legal expertise to implement a solid legally-defensible methodology including templates, a well-documented quality control methodology, and referencable case law.

We saw the beginnings of new approaches to Early Case Assessment, where next to the traditional quantitative data-processing eDiscovery approach, some vendors also made it possible to use advanced text, audio and image search in combination with content analytics and data visualization for more qualitative Early Case Assessment (ECA) approach. We also saw advancements in Machine Assisted Review (including automatic creation of random data-sampling sets), Machine Translation and Automatic Redaction on hundreds of languages, electronic file formats and different database repositories including popular cloud-based data collections.

But, besides all these high-tech innovations, one of the key questions remains: can you collect from “my repository” – which is often comprised of legacy email archives or other obsolete content management systems for which support no longer exists. I hope that all the eDiscovery pain and challenges related to these proprietary archives makes organizations look for more enduring and sustainable open archive solutions in the future. In reality, if everything had been archived in XML, for instance, than collection would be a simple endeavor as well.

Another continuing question relates to legal production formats. Many law firms negotiate sometimes exotic or at least uncommon requests or they have found out that TIFF is not the best format to produce XLS (formulas), PPT (animations) or video. Intelligent and flexible legal production functionality can make or break a deal.

Also, for the first time at LegalTech, many visitors shied away from the eDiscovery bells and whistles and wanted to learn more about “proactive eDiscovery” for information management, enterprise information archiving, legacy information clean-up, defensible disposal, data monitoring for internal investigations such as non-compliance, early fraud detection and other intelligent governance tools. The focus seems to be shifting away from solely limiting risks and costs on specific matters, but looking to use the software for better knowledge management and to assist an organization to implement its strategic goals.

In the upcoming weeks, I plan to elaborate in more detail on these topics in my blogs, so look out for more!

Please see my recent AIIM post on this topic as well.

The use cases for “visual information retrieval” span a simple search of pictures on the Internet to recognizing the faces of hooligans at the entrance of a high risk football match, monitoring airports with surveillance cameras, and investigating evidence of child pornography.

Most of the applications capable of this work are highly specialized and require specialized knowledge and experience to work effectively.

However, I expect that in the next 1-5 years, real visual information retrieval will become a core component of in-house Enterprise Information Management systems as more and more information consists of pictures and videos that are not annotated and are therefore hard to find.

Non-Text Based Data is Growing

More and more electronically stored information (ESI) is non-text based or does not contain any searchable text components (eg. sound recordings, video and pictures). This type of data is growing exponentially in size and a growing number of collaborative and social network applications support (only) these information formats. In addition, an entire generation of people uses social networks and other new media forms for communication and collaboration—exclusively—as opposed to emails and letters. How will this new reality of “visual information” impact  eDiscovery and information management?

Search Challenges in Visual Information Retrieval

Most applications are either too specialized for realistic adoption in eDiscovery and information management initiatives, or they simply aren’t able to handle the significant challenges posed by visual information. ZyLAB’s technology, however, is able to overcome such obstacles.

• Electronic files containing one or more text components or embedded objects with text components can be searched by using text-based queries.
• Document scans (images) and even pictures can be enriched with the text of the original document or even with recognizable logos in the pictures. The same technology can also be applied to video shots.
• Audio and the audio component of a video file can be processed by a phonetic search engine and users can search the content by looking for specific words or phoneme sequences.
• In addition, audio, pictures and video files can be searched on contextual information such as the file name, added meta-information or text that surrounds the picture or the video on a web page.

But the largest challenge is that it is not possible to search a picture or a video on its content.

Web search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! use primarily “contextual text” information from pictures and videos to search on these objects. This text can be tagged by users or can be found in the file name, file location, surrounding text on the web page, etc. For example, stock photo libraries are searchable because of the keywords that administrators have used to describe the image.

In some cases, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology will spot words appearing within and videos, or it could even locate and filter nudity, but that is about the extent of the support. There is little to no influence from pure visual information retrieval technology such as “give me all outdoor pictures or all images with a helicopter in it”.

Additional Challenges in Visual Information Retrieval

There are a number of additional challenges in visual information retrieval that are related to the various input formats of files, internal encoding and compression (a.k.a. Codex for video), the query format (one can use a sample image or a text description of what they are looking for), the result list format (text-based or visual-based result navigation with thumbnails and video summaries) and the viewer that is used for the image and video files.

State-of-the-art visual search technology should address all of these aspects and support both text-, image-, or video examples based querying, result navigation, and viewing.

Various Codecs

Various image input formats are supported by the ZyLAB Platform, but for proper video support, one requires one of many Codex engines in order to view the video. In some examples, video is treated as a “set of images” without taking into account the proper temporal relationships. Others have a more thorough and complete internal representation, allowing for faster and more accurate viewing and navigation.

The best approach is to convert all videos and images to one common format with the same dimensions, codec and compression. Only then can extracted image features be compared properly. There are a number of open source standards to accomplish this. Most vendors use the same open source LIBAVCODEC libraries form the FFMPEG project.

Enormous File Sizes

Images and videos, in particular, can be of enormous file size. Twenty gigabytes for a video file is common. As a result, processing the data often requires specialized hardware with very fast and large hard disks and special graphical processing power. Viewing files requires smart streaming techniques to prevent bandwidth overload.

There are many open source solutions available to resolve these problems and many vendors use the same open source libraries.

Browsing Video and Images

A result list as it is used in text-based information retrieval does not work for searching images and video; When searching images and videos, the best result is almost never on the #1 position. It is even possible that it is not among the top 10 in the result list! Ranking images is based on complex statistics and other mathematical properties that are not always intuitive.  Users need a much more exploratory and visual result list that uses all available search dimensions (such as color, shapes, locations, people, and other available properties and features) when searching images and videos.

An example of a well defined video or image result list is shown hereunder (University of Amsterdam Forkbrowser, http://www.science.uva.nl/research/mediamill/demo/forkbrowser.php).

Summary

ZyLAB software is among a short list of products that are capable of supporting visual information retrieval and doing so in a manner that supports the work of eDiscovery and information management.

Excerpted from my recent AIIM blog post, “Legacy data clean-up: different approaches to manage different data”

Addressing the E-mail Problem

Exchange server mailboxes and PST repositories are not designed for, and should not be used as, document archives—but they often are. . It is very easy for users to retain their emails, resulting in e-mail archives (PSTs) that rapidly swell to GBs of information. Problems fester because the information in these PST folders is often completely unstructured. For example, potentially sensitive human resources-related e-mails (such as performance reviews or confidential financial or medical information) are frequently in the same collection (i.e. Sent Mail) as other, unrelated messages. This common situation is problematic on two fronts: non-relevant e-mails are kept, and confidential e-mails that could be classified as “privileged” in a legal e-discovery are not stored in separate folders. This is part of the reason why e-mail is the source of the highest costs and risks for eDiscovery.

Alternatively, all relevant e-mails and documents should be archived in assigned repositories.

Here are some tips to consider:

• Implement an appropriate e-mail archiving tool
• Set an automatic deletion date for all messages, calendar items, journals, and tasks older than 90 days that still reside on your MS Exchange server in personal, shared, or functional mailboxes and in central repositories (public folders and the list server). This wholesale deletion will occur every three months. Of course, such automated processes should be suspended in the event of a litigation hold notice or upon learning of a potential lawsuit. Old e-mail repositories (PST and server-based mailboxes) also need to be sorted out and cleaned up before a set date. Choose a group to help support this activity. Consider using the same group that works on electronic discovery projects because performing clean-up activities provides a good training environment for e-discovery team members.

 The e-mail archiving method can proceed as follows:

• Create a copy of the standardized filing plan in every user’s mailbox. Users can then drag and drop relevant e-mails into these folders and create subfolders where needed.
• Make sure that software is in place that provides an option to automatically archive Sent messages to a designated location on a regular pre-defined basis.

Collecting from and Cleaning File Shares

Collecting from file shares is not as hard as it may seem, as long as the right software is in place. With many of these tools, retention policies can be executed and early case assessments can be performed. It is important to verify one can full-text index all data (also incrementally) and to be sure that whatever data manipulation action one performs is audited.

Cleaning up MS-SharePoint Repositories

MS-SharePoint, which has replaced traditional file shares in many organizations, is more difficult than the old unstructured file servers in many ways. Nowadays we are creating large unstructured data collections in MS SharePoint, which is harder to access than the old file shares.

In the event of an e-Discovery, SharePoint presents significant challenges for IT departments. When using MS-SharePoint, organizations need to ensure they can:

• Archive projects and documents based on various policies (closed, size, age, people involved, set retention or expiration date, activity) into an open and sustainable file format (such as XML and native files).
• Do this with or without stubbing (replacing an object with a pointer to another low-cost storage location, so less expansive memory is occupied on the MS-SharePoint server).
• Implement real-time archiving of files and projects.
• Optionally, include all (hidden) meta-information in your archiving. Allow Federated search to your archives from within MS-SharePoint.

Audio Records Management

The nature of data is evolving from predominantly textual data to multimedia visual and audio data. Audio data exists on traditional fixed-line phone systems, VOIP, mobile and specialist platforms like Skype or MSN Live. However, sound, pictures, phone, video and other multimedia information cannot be searched easily, if at all, without robust audio-search solutions.

In order to combat market abuse, insider dealing and market manipulation, the Federal Security Agency now requires organizations that handle client orders to record and maintain records of transactions conducted over telephone lines. These records must be “readily accessible” should the relevant authorities require them. FRCP regulations in the US allow “sound recordings” to be considered for inclusion in the list of discoverable items that may be requested as part of case preparation and evidence gathering. The wider implications of Sarbanes-Oxley and SEC regulations also influence the frequency with which audio files are called upon as a source of evidence.

Archiving and Cleaning Other Databases

Within an organization, there are also many repositories containing structured information such as financial records, logistical transactions, CRM, HRM, ERP, production and other important information. Companies have to include these repositories in their data map, as this data also needs to be managed as part of the overall filing plan.  Since most such systems are proprietary, the best approach is often to archive relevant data in an open format such as XML, or to use specialized software to collect information from these repositories to assist records managers with the identification, transfer and retention of such information.

Archiving and Cleaning from the Cloud and Remote Storage

The location of data is migrating from within the firewall to being everywhere and nowhere; on home computers, mobile devices, cell phones and, of course, in the cloud. Companies need to have well defined Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) with their cloud, SaaS or outsourcing partners to make sure that they have access to their corporate data when they need it and that it is actually destroyed or transferred when required.

Organizations should update their data retention policy to include:

• SharePoint, blogs, social media
• Unified messaging, voice files, video
• ADP and other financial service providers
• Salesforce and other CRM systems
• FedEx, UPS and other shipping providers
• BaseCamp, Google Docs and other collaboration tools

It is also very important to know which protocols the provider has in place for collection in terms of speed and quality. What can be expected from the cloud provider? What should be included in the Service Level Agreements?

eDiscovery and enterprise information management technology puts you in command of boundless enterprise data in order to mitigate risk, reduce costs, investigate matters and elicit business productivity and intelligence.

The convergence of information management and eDiscovery can help you to manage your content assets (and liabilities) and at the same time, cost-effectively mine them when an investigation ensues or when you wish to share your corporate knowledge.

Excerpted from my recent AIIM blog post, “Factors that drive solid records management.”

1.       Legal Obligation

Records retention always carries with it some type of legal obligation, regardless of the type or size of an organization. The de facto standard for how records-retention requirements should fit together in a comprehensive records management environment are based upon internationally recognized frameworks and guidelines, such as the National Archives (UK), National Archives of Australia, US Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2-STD, PRO-TNA, ISO 15489, MoReq2, and so on. While these types of standards are highly detailed and most applicable to large, bureaucratic and multi-tiered organizations, they provide guidelines for implementation across organization of any size or type, and they outline the required legal framework affecting retention obligations. The above standards, as examples, provide a clear structure for organizing file plans and streamlining the records management policies that can fit the needs of most organizations.

Though high-level records management principles are going to be similar across the globe, the type of specific policies a particular organization puts in place will depend heavily on the business sector(s) and geographic regions in which they are active, as well as their own actual levels of commitment (by both management and staff), allocated resources and the perceived legal risk.

2.       Mitigating Legal Risk

Certainly, some organizations  continue to define retention in the context of a  narrow “document management” model (i.e. storage focused rather than process focused), which falls short of meeting regulatory or performance expectations. Organizations can even be fully aware of the benefits of good records management but feel that setting up a formal and committed records management structure is a hassle and that the benefits don’t outweigh the costs or effort involved. These types of organizations are the ones that really face the most risk, as they are only motivated to move forward when prompted with a reactive stimulus such as some type of litigation.

3.       The Right Mix of Components

On the flip side, although regulatory guidelines exist, every organization is different, and even those organizations committed to creating and implementing a sound records management structure may not hit on the right solution if they try to exactly match or replicate a records management model used by another organization. The point is that there are basic tenants and principles to good records management—not just in terms of “managing records” but also in terms of creating a positive impact on the organization’s overriding knowledge management goals;But this construct doesn’t mean that there is a “one size fits all” solution to every situation.

A fixed, static model of “good records management” doesn’t exist. The focal point of good records management is to have the right mix of records-management components in place so that an organization has the appropriate level of reliability, consistency, and flexibility necessary to anticipate and adapt to changing regulations, business needs, technology, data formats and available resources.

Being “litigation ready” is often too vague and subjective to be meaningful. The following 8-Point Inspection adds some objectivity so that you can more clearly assess how prepared your organization truly is.

If you are already in-tune with your information management practices, set aside a few minutes to complete the Self Assessment on the subsequent page. Compare your total score with the Index below and use that as a benchmark for your litigation readiness initiatives:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45028471/ZyLAB-8-Point-Inspection-of-Litigation-Readiness

Conclusion

Recent market research assessing the FTSE 100 companies’ vulnerability to ten key risk factors indicates that 88% of the FTSE 100 is at risk of litigation, due in part to lackingan appropriate records management or knowledge management framework.

Through addressing these issues you can support your organization in measuring the individual status of the information management practices within your own organization and benchmark your level of preparedness. Take control of your information now!

Last week, ZyLAB’s Amsterdam team hosted more than 100 professionals and thought-leaders in the areas of eDiscovery, information management and legal technology. The delegates converged at “ZyLAB Universe 2012” which took place at the Nyenrode Business University in Amsterdam. This unique professional and historic setting was a fitting backdrop for workshops and presentations from many renowned experts.

• Gartner analyst Debra Logan provided an excellent keynote on trends and developments in eDiscovery and a separate session on Intelligent Information Governance.
• Daan Lunsingh Scheurleer, partner with NautaDutilh, led a session on eDiscovery, Compliance and Litigation Readiness.
• Gonzalo de Cesare of the European Union and formerly IM specialist at the UN war crimes tribunals in Cambodia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda discussed the deployment of ZyLAB technology in several tribunals and new rules of law worldwide.
• Barry Derksen, research director of the Business & IT Trends Institute, presented on the changing role of IT and how IT can best collaborate with the business and legal professionals in their organizations.

Debra Logan undoubtedly convinced the audience that eDiscovery and litigation are not ‘American problems’, that social media is of great concern in eDiscovery, that SaaS and Cloud solutions should be considered when regulators and lawyers are involved, that Legal and IT have to work together to solve eDiscovery problems, and that it is critical for organizations to be proactive about e-Disclosure.

In her second presentation: “Intelligent Information Governance”, Debra Logan helped the audience clearly understand information governance and enterprise information management, in particular. In order for companies to manage their information assets properly, they need to clearly understand enterprise information management. In this session the differences between EIM and related terms were outlined and an organizational model was presented to identify new roles for managing enterprise information effectively.

Gonzalo de Cesare shared his presentation on “Enabling Prosecution of the Unspeakable”, where he discussed the challenges faced by the UN Information Management team in the Office of the Prosecutor of the war crimes tribubals, which were exceptional in scale and often gruesome in content. His experience shed light on more day-to-day challenges faced by many businesses and public organizations today.

Daan Lunsingh Scheurleer explained how his company has setup a firm’s Class Action Team, providing immediate legal assistance to organizations that are involved in regulatory investigations and defending class actions relating to securities, financial services, prospectus liability and financial regulation. His experience in various collective settlements, both on an opt-in basis and on an opt-out basis under the Collective Settlement of Mass Claims Act, including Dexia, Shell Reserves,and  Converium , provided invaluable insight into the need for compliance and litigation readiness programs. He also clarified the unique attributes of litigation matters in the Netherlands compared to other jurisdictions, such as US-based litigation and how to work closely with US counsel.

Last but not least, Barry Derksen  shared the insight garnered from his extensive background working with KPMG Information & Risk Management  as an advisor, auditor, and interim manager for various governmental and commercial organizations. Specifically, Barry explained how IT can and must collaborate effectively with business and legal departments in order to make a company more competitive and to reduce costs and risk. IT should operate by proactively aligning legal, business and IT interests, they should cross the chasm, and they should initiate effective communication, understand the business, see how they can add value, create internal and external partnerships, and assist with implementing governance and compliance programs. As a result, they will become better aligned with legal and subsequently create better value and return on investment for the organization.

The esteemed faculty provided a wonderful curriculum, and the active participation from all attendees helped to make it a magnificent conference all around. The collective group of IT, legal, investigative, compliance, and information management professionals openly discussed challenges and potential solutions to the hurdles associated with eDiscovery, compliance, law enforcement and enterprise information management.

At the end of the day, ZyLAB’s VP of Sales and Marketing for EMEA/APAC, Victor Cohen, provided an excellent wrap up and conclusion of the day:

We all have to work together because:

1. eDiscovery and e-Disclosure are not challenges that are unique to the US
2. New regulations are created every day, and regulators are getting more aggressive
3. Information continues to grow
4. Social Media and working in the cloud bring new challenges
5. Legal & IT alignment yields litigation readiness, increased performance, and higher ROI.

I would like to thank all presenters and participants for contributing to this wonderful event. ZyLAB Universe 2012 demonstrated how effective collaboration among IT, legal, compliance and investigators benefits everyone.

Excerpted from my recent AIIM blog post, “The expanding role of records management: creating the foundation for effective and pro active discovery.”

In today’s business organization it is common for individual departments to carry their own cost centers, overheads and profit targets. While this structure has its benefits, it can also lead to conflicting objectives and issues with inter-departmental communication.

A legal department, for example, requires a robust software solution to reduce risks from litigation, while the IT department needs to reduce spend by 35% to justify a new server they believe to be essential to smooth business operations.

IT departments understand Records Management (RM) and strive for good Knowledge Management (KM) as a strategic part of the business value, making their lives much easier. However, they may be less aware of the value of a RM framework that also provides e-discovery.

Any effective RM solution must be multifaceted and have at least some level of robust search and e-discovery capabilities to be scalable, especially in the face of growing regulations concerning information transparency, security and expectations for data archiving and retention.

Integrating Records Management, eDiscovery and Knowledge Management

A comprehensive records management solution, supported by enterprise search and advanced content analytics functionality, can lead to better overall knowledge management and proactive e-discovery capabilities, minimized legal risks, and an enhanced profit potential.
In fact, e-discovery and its supporting functionalities provide the critical pillars upon which true records management can be built. And it is only in this foundational context that a practical, compliant, and comprehensive enterprise-wide knowledge management solution can become fully actualized.
Benefits Beyond Risk Aversion and Legal Preparedness
Even though the primary motivator for many companies wanting to establish solid records management policies and systems comes from the need to avoid certain risks, the structural and procedural environment created from such an initiative not only creates a strong position with which to accomplish better overall knowledge management across the organization, but it typically provides a variety of additional positive byproducts, including more nimble and proactive customer service capabilities, an unencumbered environment for innovation, optimized maneuverability and preparedness in a rapidly shifting competitive marketplace and stronger positioning for long-term profitability.

Those are all benefits that every internal department can appreciate.

Excerpted from my recent AIIM post, “To More Cost Effective and Less Risky eDiscovery via an Effective RM Strategy”

Effective records management tools and procedures are at the heart of effective and sustainable eDiscovery. Such a records management solution should at least adhere to the following basic principles:
• Create additional flexibility regarding the way records are actually defined within the organization;
• Support the management of records as they are currently used (a file plan);
• Provide a comprehensive and workable strategy for secure and enduring retention of records;
• Enable the accurate and secure final disposition of records, based on pertinent rules and regulations.
• Enable the management of documents and files within the organization to enhance competitiveness, minimize legal risks and realize timely and adequate responses to an e-discovery or e-disclosure.
Creating a Flexible Definition of Records
A “record” means different things to different people. In the context of eDiscovery and information management, we aren’t talking about albums on vinyl or the Guinness Book, but what constitutes a record for one organization may differ from another entity. Every organization should have its own definition of a “record”, and this definition should be based on the actual business plan and nature of that organization.
The bigger and more complicated the organization, the more complicated the records series (i.e., a numeric matrix of the records in an organization), which is the basic framework upon which a file plan is based. Because record series can become rather complicated, actual records should be defined based on content (and usability)— thereby allowing the automation of a retention schedule within each of the records series—as opposed to medium (e.g. e-mail) or document type (e.g. letter). This approach is consistent with that defined by the Department of Defense’s standard (DoD 5015.2-STD), which, among other guidelines, supports the notion that all documents, including e-mail, be treated according to the defined records series (file plan).
An organization can define records as project-based collections of information if all records within that collection pertain exclusively to a particular project and if all records have the exact same lifespan (legal obligations on retention). However, a more efficient method is to create a multi-tiered file plan for project records. Using this approach means that records can be defined at the highest level as belonging to a particular project, at which point they can then be subdivided into “content” categories as the file plan is created. This structure allows for the automation of the retention schedule. Although organizations are free to define their records series and subsequent file plans, these items need to take into account the legal framework and jurisdiction where they operate and the legal obligations for retention, privacy and disclosure.
Supporting a Workable File Plan
Any organization that is ready to implement the most up-to-date records management policies, especially to enhance overall efficiency, must consider the following factors in the context of its operations, priorities, and available resources:
• File recording
• Workable file structures
• Classification and metadata
• Evaluation and prioritization
• Retention policies
• Legal obligations
• Execution of plan
• Verification structure.
Having a solid file plan in place is critical to being able to organize and enhance the efficiency of back-office operations. As previously stated, file plans are directly related to the complexity of an organization and are based on its business needs. Therefore, for the US Department of Defense, for instance, the intricacy of the file plan is enormous, but there is no other workable alternative for an organization of such size and complexity. Smaller or simpler structures within organizations would require a much simpler and more straightforward file plan.

Creating a Comprehensive Retention Strategy
Structuring records serves another goal, namely the length of time that any organization is required to keep records. Keeping all records forever is counterproductive, as this approach would lead to unmanageable sets of data. For example, in the case of some financial organizations this would actually be breaking regulatory requirements of things such as PCI DSS. Rather, records series and file plans provide a structure to allow for the establishment of a retention schedule leading to final disposition.
After a file plan is defined, the implementation of a retention schedule attached to each record series becomes easier. This situation can be further enhanced by setting it up to provide an automated warning message that is sent to appointed officials. These officials can then affect the final disposition of particular records. Legal obligations apply, depending on the jurisdiction where the organization operates. For instance, in most parts of Europe, financial records need to be legally kept in their entirety for a period of seven years, whereas personnel records may need to be kept for up to 72 years, and so forth. In addition, depending on the policies that are mandated by law, an organization may decide to extend its retention schedule if the records in question constitute “substantial records” (i.e., records that are absolutely necessary for the re-start of operations in the event of a calamity and constitute a small percentage of the overall records of the organization). These records are required for the organization throughout its lifespan and should be kept forever.
Disposition of Records
After a retention schedule is established, disposition of records can go from permanent archival/inactive status (substantial records) to destruction. Records should strictly follow this retention schedule if an effective records management policy is to be applied.
Retention schedules are complicated, and the only way to effectively apply them is through the use of an automated system, setting alarms and warnings to allow for the implementation of the retention policy. Realistically, no organization is going to perform these activities in a manual way. Logic holds, then, that a retention policy will not be possible without the presence of a strong records management policy that has clear and transparent file plans and records series.
Retention schedules can and should also be suspended in case of extenuating circumstances. In example of a court case, if certain records scheduled to be disposed fall under disclosure obligations, these records need to be held until further notice. Destruction of this information is considered to be a crime. Therefore, the retention schedule should have the proper flexibility to accommodate these requirements, regardless of what type of system is implemented to monitor retention processes.
Executing the File Plan
The best option is to have a computer-controlled filing plan executed with data inside repositories that are controlled by a robust records management and archiving application. ZyLAB, for instance, offers aDoD-compliant records management and archiving system which works well in both large, complex organizations as well as in small and linear ones. Furthermore, relying on the automation from a records management and archiving system reduces the chance of human error and provides for transparent and auditable records management policies. Traditionally smaller organizations shy away from such solutions, scared by potential costs. Efficient EDRMS (RMA) solutions are scalable and costs are directly proportional to the size of the application. Consequently, this solution may well be the most cost-effective one available for any organization. Plus, proper records management off-sets the cost of eDiscovery.
By focusing on two components—a file plan and a final disposition plan—and using those two factors to evaluate the needs of particular business units, an organization can then outline a laundry list of the types of records management tools and capabilities they need on an organizational scale. Basing a file plan on content (theme) rather than on medium will also contribute to finding commonalities among the different groups within specific organizations, allowing for an easier implementation of a records management policy. In addition, an efficient file plan should take into account particular nuances that will allow customized implementation per area as required.
Realizing Timely and Adequate Responses to an eDiscovery
An effective record-management system should enable the management of all assets within the organization, whether they are documents (paper, electronic, email) or record types. A good system is compliant with the internationally recognized US DoD 5015.2 and Sarbanes-Oxley standards.

An integrative records management approach leads to enhanced competitiveness, more agility to meet specific customer needs, minimized legal risks, better positioning for higher profits, and supports legal departments to realize timely and adequate responses to an e-discovery or e-disclosure.