Today in civil litigation, electronically stored information, including email is the most requested form of information discovery. This makes sense as over 90 percent of all of a company’s information is generated and stored electronically.

It is this information that can save or kill a company in litigation.

Based on this new litigation reality it is critical that you do everything you can to limit your exposure by beginning to understand what ‘records’ you have within your business, what is worth retaining and how will you find relevant records when required to do so.

Companies today have so much information that it becomes impossible to describe the volume of possible ‘records’ in an understandable form. Gigbytes, Terabytes, files mean nothing when E-Discovery needs to occur.

So I think a good starting point for all businesses of any size is to first understand what the definition of a ‘record’ is.

‘Records’ are defined as something that has “legal, fiscal, or administrative” value for business continuity.

Most of us tend to be pack rats and keep everything, just in case we might need it. Operating from this way of thinking is fine until you have to search through all of your information in response to a litigation situation.

This topic is way deeper than I could cover in a single blog post but I wanted to get it on your radar for consideration. For more information on managing your ‘records’ visit AIIM, the association for all things ‘Content Management’ related. 

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