Are you familiar with the recent federal amendments and their potential impact to your company? On December 1st of last year, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to include electronic information to be of the same importance (if not more) as paper documents in litigation. Leading up to the adoption of these rules, you were likely exposed to a great deal of “hype” about the new rules from vendors offering to sell software to solve the electronic discovery problems for your company. While many companies used this information as a scare tactic to boost sales, it is a fact that IT departments will need to respond more quickly than before to discovery and internal investigation requests. Delays in responding to a request for information can be costly. In one case, the U.S. District Court determined the appropriate fine for a late response to a discovery request was $50,000 per day and Morgan Stanley was fined 1.4 Billion dollars for destroying electronic evidence. Granted these are extreme examples, but monetary sanctions are becoming common for companies that cannot adequately respond to discovery requests when involved in litigation. The principle is simple, preparing for these amended rules is not provided by software tools alone, but a proactive process that will save your company time and money if litigation does occur.

We are a specialized data services company that was formed on the understanding that the role of your IT department is to maintain and advance business initiatives, not respond to litigation. Due to the importance of the matter, responding to litigation requests requires the personnel that are most valuable to your department. The opportunity costs of having your most valued employees responding to litigation will have a direct impact on your business initiatives. To complicate matters further, there are often “communication challenges” between your department and attorneys that can provide a new set of opportunities in complying to litigation requests. With experience in both small and large electronic discovery cases, Forensic Discoveries works with our clients to:

• Assist your department and your attorneys to proactively plan for electronic discovery to reduce the impact and costs to your organization.
• Lead or assist in responding to discovery requests if litigation does occur.
• Work directly with your attorneys to ensure that your company is complying with the rules governing the litigation.
• Work with you and your attorneys to identify, request, and work with electronic information when initiating litigation.

For a no obligation consultation concerning basic steps that can be taken to prepare for electronic discovery requests or to discuss our computer forensic services, please call me at (865) 809-7590.