Resource Listings

In this ACC Guide, in-house counsel will learn how to organize their physical and electronic records to create a more efficient legal environment. While automation can be challenging, there are many systems that departments can use to find success.

In order to successfully transition to Office 365, in-house lawyers at corporations large and small must plan ahead. This article will address the top ten things to consider when rolling out Microsoft Office 365.

Litigation is a complicated game of claims and defenses, requiring the court’s attention on the merits. Requesting parties frequently attempt to distract the court with claims unrelated to the merits in an effort to take their eyes off the ball. Parties are seeking discovery of unrelated, overbroad information that courts have repeatedly found to be outside the bounds of what is permitted by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Be prepared to blow the whistle.

United States, Contoural

Use of collaboration tools like Slack, Teams, and those alike – rather than traditional face-to-face communications – often results in more informal and unfiltered communications, which presents legal risk and requires significant new considerations for organizations, including whether information is retained and where and how long information is stored. In this article, learn some best practices to face these challenges.

Records management processes need to follow the “five second rule:” All record identification, classification, retention period research, storing, and tagging processes altogether cannot take longer than five seconds.

In this ACC Guide, learn the components of an effective records management program, and the steps required to execute a schedule once developed. This ACC Guide presents global strategies for the in-house counsel or other team members tasked with starting, updating modernizing, or simply improving their company’s records management program.

sample form, policy, United States, Contoural

A Data Classification Standard (DCS) is a document that defines levels of security classification for records and information, and information handling controls for the repositories (systems and media) that contain them. It provides a global, baseline set of security classifications that apply to all content types and repositories. The standard also specifies the minimum set of data-security controls that apply to data in each classification during activities that occur over the life cycle of the data – including identification, storage, retrieval, marking, duplication, transportation, archiving, and deletion.

In this ACC Guide, learn why letting electronic information accumulate can be hurtful, and why deleting it can be difficult. The guide  reviews several deletion approaches that are ineffective and highlights those approaches that work well. These smart strategies will enable companies to create effective programs that ensure compliance, reduce risk, lower costs, and increase productivity.

In development or update of a records program it may appear that once a company has its policies and processes, roadmap, tools, and technology in place, some may believe they are done. However, here is still a critical task remaining: employee behavior change management.

Organization’s records retention schedules need to be synchronized with assurance current and emerging privacy laws . Records retention laws and regulations may require companies to retain records for a certain number of years, driven by literally thousands of record retention regulations. These requirements may override consumer deletion requests of their personal information.

Deleting emails and files is a type of initiative that looks easy at the outset but become difficult. Emails and files are retained, and month after month, can quickly year after year they accumulate creating digital layers called information horizons. These information horizons contain a little bit of everything: records, non-records, copies containing high-value value information, personal information, intellectual property, and even documents subject to legal hold.

It can be costly to hold on to information that is obsolete, expired, either legal, regulatory, and not needed for or business reasons.  An organization must determine what needs to be saved (meaning, it can identify what can be disposed). Policies can be developed that include both the business justification and process for deleting electronic documents, and establish consistent, repeatable, defensible processes that allow for the routine deletion of data not under a legal hold.

This is a glossary of Information Governance terms.