1. Ensure Effective Communication Between Legal and IT

In the digital age, a litigation hold may be formulated and communicated by the legal department, but the follow up and execution is often the responsibility of the IT department. It is imperative that the intentions of the legal department are clearly and plainly communicated and understood by the technicians responsible for collecting and preserving the electronically stored information. When this communication fails, the wrong data is harvested, or worse, data is destroyed, and the client suffers. What’s more, the communication disconnect is not limited to in-house Legal by any means - there have been many instances in which outside counsel failed to effectively communicate to IT, and the necessary data was not collected or preserved.

This may sound like common sense, but in reality, poor communication between Legal and IT is often an Achilles heel. Within corporations, the two departments that are typically the most isolated are Legal and IT. To everyone else in the corporation, Legal and IT literally “have their own languages.” Additionally, these individuals are usually indispensable to the day-to-day business operations, and as such, are consumed with the burdens of routine problem solving. There is little time left over for anything else. Under such circumstances, communication is inevitably handicapped. Corporations must be mindful of this likely scenario, and take proactive steps to ensure that information and direction are correctly and completely understood by everyone involved.

Another danger of ineffective communication between in-house legal and IT departments involves the purchase and use of hardware and software by the corporate client. In one example, a large action was brought against a Fortune 100 company. As expected, the legal department properly informed other departments whose cooperation would be needed. Unfortunately, IT and Legal did not work together to coordinate their efforts. Operating under the erroneous assumption that an archive of legacy data would be required for discovery, IT purchased some very expensive hardware to acquire it from a set of antiquated tape drives. When this assumption and the resulting purchase were finally communicated back to the legal department, in-house counsel regrettably informed the client that the legacy data would not have been “reasonably accessible” if the hardware had not been purchased. The cost of that uninformed decision was substantial. The company bore the expense of the hardware; more importantly, once the data had been retrieved, it had to be reviewed, at a significant cost of both time and money.

So how can corporations ensure effective communication, avoid costly errors, and reap the benefits of an efficient and accurate discovery process? The best first step is to create a Litigation Response Team comprised of key Legal, IT, and supporting personnel. This team jumps into action any time there is a large-scale action to ensure cooperation and communication throughout the discovery process. Altep routinely recommends the formation of such teams to our corporate clients; once in place, we work hand-in-hand with the Response Team to set up procedures and methodologies that utilize technology, people and shared information as efficiently as possible. Alternately, clients can utilize an Altep Rapid Response Team to facilitate communication between corporate departments. This team will also assess the corporation’s infrastructure to develop and implement defensible, well-documented and accountable discovery processes and litigation management plans.