Disposition Is Critical To An Effective Record Retention System

Electronic Discovery can easily cost a corporation hundreds of thousands of dollars. Traditionally, corporate attorneys have advised their clients to maintain business records for lengthy periods of time. Their position was that the documents might be needed in case of a litigation or government investigation. As a result, most companies elected to keep rather then destroy business records.

In the past decade the amount of litigation has grown at a substantial rate. With the changes and the relaxation of pre-trial discovery rules, records are frequently subpoenaed during litigation and used to the advantage of the opposing party. Very often a plaintiff's attorneys request appears to be a fishing expedition looking for a "smoking gun" amongst the millions of documents, emails, and reports accumulated over a period of years. The very documents that the attorney recommended saving are now causing companies to pay thousands of dollars to find and turn over to the plaintiff. Theses documents may also contain evidence that will be detrimental in court. Many of these records would not have been available if they had been destroyed under a records retention program.