Ruth, I hope that you will continue to fight your fight and not let IT
throw up your collective hands at this.  As Jesse noted there is no way
to truly, 100% ensure email is gone from the entire world, however you
CAN remove it from your internal sources (although it might not be
easy).  I get very disheartened at the argument "well, if we can't do it
100%, then why do it at all" - that's the perfect example of a cop-out.

Now, as for litigation and other types of exposure (reputation, etc.) if
you maintain email beyond it's required retention (required by whatever
- regulation, policy/business need, etc.) then you absolutely run the
risk of it being called into a future litigation/proceeding.  However,
if you diligently apply methods to apply your retention policy, you will
protect yourselves to a great degree.  There may end up being some
stragglers that *may* get caught up in some future litigation or
proceeding, but the chance would be much, much more slim and probably a
risk that is more tolerable than allowing ALL email to remain available.
I'm not touching the topic of spoliation here as that didn't seem to be
your source of current concern.  However as Jesse also noted, I am not a
lawyer! 

Look at it from the standpoint of the proliferation of hardcopy
"convenience copies".  Would they also suggest you drop a record series
that is primarily hardcopy from your schedule because there is a great
likelihood that at least one hardcopy exists in your organization even
after you destroy the "record" copy?  Probably not, even though
ferreting out every last hardcopy may be even harder than doing the same
for electronic records.

Again, just because it's hard, doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a good
idea.

Happy early Friday to all!

Julie

Julie J. Colgan
Director of Records Management
Nexsen Pruet, LLC

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