Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Amendments Require Best Practices to Properly Preserve and Access Electronic Content
ZANTAZ Outlines Amendments, Their Impact on Archiving Electronic Content, and How Best to Prepare for the FRCP Changes to Ensure Effective Discovery Processes
PLEASANTON, Calif. - Sept. 21, 2006 - ZANTAZ, Inc., a global leader in content archiving and electronic discovery solutions, has developed a set of best practices for responding to the imminent, complex changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) regarding electronic discovery. The changes, which have been generally recognized for some time, become official on December 1, 2006. Companies adopting these best practices can minimize the cost of the electronic discovery process and ensure effective litigation in the Federal Court System. The best practices are being distributed free of charge in the form of a white paper authored by Russ Yoshinaka, Esq., senior director of Legal Affairs at ZANTAZ. The white paper is available for download at the ZANTAZ website: http://www.zantaz.com/news/resources/white_papers_list.php.
In addition to the best practices, the white paper also includes extensive information on the FRCP changes and how the changes will impact corporate policies pertaining to electronic discovery and the archiving of electronic content.
"The changes to the FRCP put additional pressure on organizations to develop systems and processes that make them more accountable for preserving and producing data for electronic discovery requests," said Steve King, president and CEO, ZANTAZ. "Through years of experience developing and refining the electronic discovery process, ZANTAZ has crafted key best practices that will help companies maintain control over the information they have, the information they should delete, and how to access the information they need to respond to litigation."
For all U.S.-based organizations and some multi-nationals operating in the U.S., these rule changes, which for the first time specifically reference electronically stored information including email as evidence, will have a dramatic effect on the amount of time and money spent preparing for litigation. Failure to be prepared for these changes can result in higher costs for "rush" discovery requests and present a greater likelihood of lost lawsuits.
"Corporations can minimize the risks of high discovery costs and discovery sanctions by following ZANTAZ' best practices for effectively collecting, preserving, and accessing electronic content relevant to litigation," Yoshinaka said. "As a result of implementing these best practices, ZANTAZ customers have successfully integrated content archiving and electronic discovery processes that enable them to address the concepts embodied within the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."
Briefly summarized, the ZANTAZ best practices for electronic discovery preparation are:
Establish routine, good faith data deletion. FRCP changes give companies a limited so-called "Safe Harbor" upon which to formulate a data deletion process. However, the process must first be "routine." This is most readily accomplished by an electronic data archiving system that can be configured so as to allow for regularly scheduled, systematic deletions of data based on parameters suitable to the customer's internal policies or external requirements. In addition, all data deletion must be done in "good-faith." This means that the routine process must include the ability to tag and preserve data that is subject to potential litigation, which again is most readily accomplished by an electronic data archiving system.
Know what data you have and in which format it exists. FRCP changes provide a mechanism by which a party to a lawsuit can claim that it need not search certain sources of information due to an undue burden or cost. But to take advantage of this rule, the party must be able to identify these sources and have enough information regarding the nature and content of these sources in order to defend its argument.
Address the most important content first. According to the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), email represents a staggering 75 percent of all corporate intelligence, and in 2005, according to Corporate Counsel Magazine, U.S. organizations spent a total of $5.8 billion to analyze emails for discovery purposes. Several million-dollar fines have been levied against corporations in the last few years for failure to capture, preserve, and produce email. Email should be among the first types of content companies properly capture and preserve.
Outsource the archive process to a trusted third party. With the December 1st deadline rapidly approaching, companies need to act now. With a hosted, or "on demand," archiving solution, companies can rely on an experienced partner to get their electronic information organized, accessible, and ready for discovery in a matter of days or weeks - not months or years.
Ensure that policies established for data deletion are integrated with the archive, and that both the policy and the system allow for "legal holds." While the rule changes require companies to integrate data deletion into the archiving system, companies should ensure the flexibility to initiate "legal holds" to prevent automatically deleting information relevant to pending litigation.
Keep all electronic data with a single vendor to manage risk and limit costs. The FRCP changes add even greater complexity to already complex information management processes. Relying on a single, trusted partner that provides a complete offering of content archiving and electronic discovery solutions can reduce complexity, help manage costs by centralizing all project management duties and data-processing tasks, and reduce the risk of tainting the "chain-of-custody."
For the complete white paper, which includes more detailed information about the FRCP amendments and how to implement these best practices, please visit the ZANTAZ website at http://www.zantaz.com/news/resources/white_papers_list.php.
About ZANTAZ
ZANTAZ is the global leader in Information Retention and Discovery Management (IRDM) solutions. ZANTAZ archiving and litigation support solutions enable organizations to capture, preserve and access unstructured digital information-including email, IM, files, scanned documents, and other electronic records-and review and produce relevant documents in a manner that reduces operational risks and costs while complying with legal, regulatory and corporate policy requirements. ZANTAZ solutions are available as on-site software applications or on-demand hosted services, and include a broad set of professional services and integration support. ZANTAZ customers include 9 of the 10 top global law firms, 11 of the Fortune 25 and 14 of the top 20 Financial Securities firms. For more information, visit www.ZANTAZ.com or call 800.636.0095.
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