Federal Data Retention Policy

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   Federal Mandated Data Retention Policy- effective today! December 1, 2006
On December 1, several amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (appendix A below simplifies the rules) regarding a company's duty to preserve and produce electronically stored information (ESI) in the face of litigation � or pending litigation � are scheduled to take effect. The rules (specifically Civil Rules 16, 26, 33, 34 and 37) have already been adopted in some states, like New Jersey, and other states, including Texas and California, have already implemented some of the new rules. 
As with most new compliance rules, there is some confusion and hand-wringing on the part of enterprises as to what the amendments really mean. In this case, the big question companies are asking of their attorneys, IT people, vendors and compliance officers is: Do the new rules mean we have to drastically alter the way we preserve, retrieve and produce electronic data? The answer to that question: It depends. It depends on what practices, procedures and technology you already have in place (if any), and how susceptible your enterprise is to a lawsuit.  

Are your customers compliant?

If your client company has clearly stated, consistent, across-the-board policies and procedures in place on ESI preservation and production in the event of litigation, you may be protected. If your company doesn't, you could be vulnerable to crippling sanctions and fines. Not sure where you stand?  Not sure where to start? 

The Tech-Army forum is here to assist you with the highest level of technology understanding to effectively construct a plan to build, support, and protect your environment.  
SUGGESTED REFERENCES
A Fios, Inc. white paper.Working Through the Practical Implications of the Amended
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. July 2006.
http://www.fiosinc.com/resources/pdfFiles/200608FRCP_Amendments_whitepaper.pdf.

Rules About to Change in e-Discovery Game
By Jennifer Schiff
November 7, 2006
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/continuity/features/article.php/3642421

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John Beagle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: Oct/24/2006 Location: United States Online Status: Online Posts: 909	Quote Reply Topic: Federal Data Retention Policy Posted: Dec/04/2006 at 8:21am
	Federal Mandated Data Retention Policy- effective today! December 1, 2006 On December 1, several amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (appendix A below simplifies the rules) regarding a company's duty to preserve and produce electronically stored information (ESI) in the face of litigation � or pending litigation � are scheduled to take effect. The rules (specifically Civil Rules 16, 26, 33, 34 and 37) have already been adopted in some states, like New Jersey, and other states, including Texas and California, have already implemented some of the new rules. As with most new compliance rules, there is some confusion and hand-wringing on the part of enterprises as to what the amendments really mean. In this case, the big question companies are asking of their attorneys, IT people, vendors and compliance officers is: Do the new rules mean we have to drastically alter the way we preserve, retrieve and produce electronic data? The answer to that question: It depends. It depends on what practices, procedures and technology you already have in place (if any), and how susceptible your enterprise is to a lawsuit. Are your customers compliant? If your client company has clearly stated, consistent, across-the-board policies and procedures in place on ESI preservation and production in the event of litigation, you may be protected. If your company doesn't, you could be vulnerable to crippling sanctions and fines. Not sure where you stand? Not sure where to start? The Tech-Army forum is here to assist you with the highest level of technology understanding to effectively construct a plan to build, support, and protect your environment. SUGGESTED REFERENCES A Fios, Inc. white paper.Working Through the Practical Implications of the Amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. July 2006. http://www.fiosinc.com/resources/pdfFiles/200608FRCP_Amendments_whitepaper.pdf. Rules About to Change in e-Discovery Game By Jennifer Schiff November 7, 2006 http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/continuity/features/article.php/3642421

John Beagle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: Oct/24/2006 Location: United States Online Status: Online Posts: 909	Quote Reply Posted: Dec/04/2006 at 8:22am
	Good News for IT Vendors? "Technology got us into this mess and technology will get us out of this," says Whetstone. "There are new tools, Stratify happens to be one, that allow lawyers, reviewers, companies to better understand their data universes, better manage them in real time, better organize and pre-organize these data universes, so that when a litigation threat arises, when the duty to preserve triggers and there is a need to go get the data, they'll be able to look at their data across business units by subject matter and be able to then focus their review and leverage technology's ability to cluster like documents together. "As a result of that, reviewers will be able to far more rapidly review the documents and communicate their conclusions with one another and ultimately to the courts or investigative bodies," he says. "That's very powerful. And it's going to drive down the labor costs, because it's just not sustainable to have dozens or hundreds of litigators at $200, $300, $400 pouring through massive volumes of electronic data as if they are looking at stacks of paper on their desks. So there's going to have to be a need to leverage technology." That's good news for a lot of IT vendors � many of whom have been hawking their various data management, data retention, data indexing and e-discovery wares in advance of the new rules. Late this summer, Symantec announced it had added support for new federal regulations (among other services) for its Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator e-discovery solution (see Symantec Speaks Legalese). More recently, Iron Mountain announced a new retention management solution called Retention Center, which "will allow organizations to manage, monitor and audit systems and repositories that contain records and information to meet compliance and litigation requirements." And the list goes on, with e-discovery companies such as Attenex and Stratify talking up their solutions' ability to help companies sift through large collections of unstructured content, such as e-mail and MS Office documents, and quickly zoom in on the most relevant information needed, and data management software provider CommVault positioning its Unified Data Management approach as a way for customers to "establish and document end-to-end processes for data discovery and preservation," according to David West, vice president of marketing and business development at CommVault. The new rules also "bode well for the information classification folks like Kazeon and Index Engines that can index corporate content," says Babineau.