Dale,

I waited until Ginny, Larry and others replied to add my comments.

In building vaults for law firms through the years, they have, in each and every case, opted to build a vault of a Four Hour Listing. The vaults described in NFPA 232 provide the standards on building a vault for a Class 350 or Media Rated Vault as vaults must be designed to protect the type of records stored within the vault.

Law Firms typically chose a vault rating that would later be deemed as negligent. And that is what leads them to select the normal four hour rated vault. In the security industry, a door of less than four hours is typically referred to as a "File Room" door not a vault door.  If you check with the manufacturers of vault doors and file room doors they will tell you that very few file room doors are sold as those making a decision that something requires fire protection soon make the determination that building something less than four hours will typically be deemed as equivalent to building nothing at all.

File Rooms are typically built using multiple layers of drywall. But drywall is not structural in a fire and vaults under NFPA 232 are required to be structural in a fire. So now you are back to building a vault and if you build a vault, there is little cost differential between a vault door and a two hour rated file room door. So now you are building a four hour vault.

The interesting point is who is mandating you build a vault and the answer is most often "No One!"

The courts do not tell you to build a vault, but they certainly hold you liable after the fact. For example in today's posting:
> Rail agency must not delete emails

This requirement to retain the records is a strict mandate to avoid destruction by any means. That is reinforced by the spoliation clauses we see coming out of Sarbanes-Oxley, Rule 26 and ESI and these track the liability back to the C-Level officers and now the Board of Directors.

The Rule of Thumb of Vault Building is the higher up the management chain, the decision on the vault moves, the higher the rating. If your head of litigation is asked what level of protection the law firm should provide for its records, the answer will be "Whatever the best rating is!"

If you ask Facilities they will confidently tell you a gypsum board room with a fire rated metal door is fine. If you can tell me you never will have a fire, then you don't need a vault at all. I have never witnessed facilities building a real vault. Since this is always their first vault they always make mistakes. 

If you are sure you will have a fire, then I recommend a four hour vault. If your records are protected within a four hour vault, you eliminate negligence although the courts do not relieve you of the liability to present the records, no matter how well intended your design.  A duty to present is just that.  But with a law firm, you will be held to the highest standard.

Failure to protect, failure to create a Data Map and so on lead to disadvantageous court settlements because you cannot defend yourself.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM


On May 24, 2012, at 12:00 AM, RECMGMT-L automatic digest system wrote:

> Subject: [RM] Legal Requirements for Vault Storage
> 
> Hi - I'm a new subscriber at a mid-size law firm in Chicago.  We've outgrown our present will vault and are looking at retrofitting a new room to create a vault storage space here at the firm, vs. storing the documents in a vendor space in a vault- off-site.
> 
> I can't seem to find any information on whether there are LEGAL specifications for the fire safety standards for building a vault space (such as:  4 hour doors, fireproof walls, dry sprinklers, etc.).  All I can find are RECOMMENDATIONS by the NFPA.
> 
> My question is:  can anyone tell me if there are LEGAL requirements for vault fire safety standards?  We're in Illinois, if that makes any difference.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dale Boyer


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