Laura,
I'll give a slightly different perspective.
I'm a records manager who recently left corporate America and came to a
law firm. In the company I came from, RIM could never get a place at
the table with IT. It was extremely frustrating to witness software
being implemented, along with the processes necessary to get it to work,
and see that RIM compliance issues were being completely ignored, and
knowing that the company would pay the price for this for years or
decades to come.
My position in the law firm includes the traditional legal records
departments of conflict of interest, new matter intake, and disposition
of physical files, but I'm also responsible for setting up processes and
systems that link information in our firm's DMS with the physical
records side of things. To accomplish this we're slowly rolling out new
software applications, and analyzing how the data is generated and used
throughout the firm.
I am so grateful to be working with IT! I think RIM practitioners bring
a unique and valuable perspective to the management of information.
While some of the tasks you're responsible for may not fall into
traditional areas of RIM practice, I believe that more and more we'll be
seeing records managers acting as the bridge between IT and other
functions. IT department personnel are highly educated and extremely
intelligent, as a rule, but they're usually disconnected from how the
information that's stored within the systems they manage is used and
they've not been exposed to many RIM concepts. So, their emphasis tends
to be on providing software and system tools, keeping the networks and
workstations operating, ensuring adequate storage for data, and
minimizing costs. Enhancing usability and retrievability of
information, as well as compliance issues, are often are not within
their job descriptions.
Are you aware of ILTA (International Legal Technical Association,
http://www.iltanet.org/default.aspx)? I looked for your firm in their
membership list, but couldn't find it. They have a strong RIM group,
and it's been a great resource for me.
Pilar C. McAdam, CRM
Director of Legal Information Systems
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
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Pilar C. McAdam, CRM
Director of Legal Information Systems
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Fax: 213.443.2703
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