Surveys: Companies Still Struggle With e-Discovery

As the use of smart-phones, tablet computers, and other handheld devices explodes across Corporate America, managing and monitoring that enormous volume of “mobile information” can be a herculean task at the best of times. Add the threats of litigation, swiftly changing technology, and increased regulation, and most compliance programs are left flailing.

Three separate surveys released recently show just how frustrating the situation can be, even when companies make some headway in managing e-discovery and similar challenges. New research from Kroll Ontrack, for example, indicates that while more companies are adopting a strategy to respond to discovery requests for electronically stored information, many of those strategies remain untested.

More than half (52 percent) of the 203 IT and legal executives polled in the survey said they had some sort of e-discovery policy in place—yet only 38 percent have tested them. “That can expose them to more risk than not having a policy,” says Jason Straight, vice president of business development at Kroll Ontrack.

Straight says companies ought to conduct drills based on hypothetical or real legal cases, and also update policies regularly to reflect new technologies or new user habits. He recommends a policy review every six months; the Kroll survey found that 55 percent of respondents either hadn’t updated their policies at all in 2010 or didn’t know if one happened.

Gloomy news, but the Kroll survey also had some brighter spots. Foremost, corporate legal and IT departments are working together more often on e-discovery, or at least say they should be. Forty-four percent of respondents said legal and IT should share responsibility for developing and enforcing e-discovery strategy, up from 35 percent who said the same in 2009—and 23 percent think it should fall on a cross-functional team, compared to 11 percent in 2009. That’s a major change in attitude from 2007, when 41 percent of respondents said legal alone had that responsibility.

To Continue Reading: Click Here
---------------------------------------------
Source: complianceweek.com
By: Melissa Klein Aguilar