Stephen:  You didn't say how long your current retention period is, i.e., shorter than what?  If your current retention period for is 20 years, then I'd say that there's plenty of room for shortening.  If your current period is ten years, less room for shortening.  If your firm doesn't use a big bucket approach, i.e., wants to assign different retention periods to different record series, then I'd say that you have to use "Final Disposition of Matter" as the retention trigger, and the period must extend through any possible statute of limitations for filing appeals.  Because you're not a law firm handling matters on behalf of clients, I don't think you need to take the statute of limitations for filing malpractice claims into account.  But for litigation appeal purposes, you'd have to look at the statute of limitations for filing appeals for every state in which you have litigation cases.  

Being out of the law firm arena for quite a while now, I can tell you that my company uses the big bucket approach across the board, including litigation files, and our bucket is ten years from an appropriately identified trigger (not counting any record series that are specifically excepted from the bucket due to statutes or regulations that are out of the usual and customary range, e.g., hazardous substances exposure records).  

Hope this makes sense, as it's late afternoon on Friday, and I'm about to get out of here!

--Lee       


Lee R. Nemchek, MLS, CRM, IGP
Vice President, Enterprise Records Governance
Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.
333 South Grand Avenue, 28th Floor
Los Angeles, CA  90071 
p +1 213 830-6252   f +1 213 830-8504
[log in to unmask]
www.oaktreecapital.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cohen, Stephen E.
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2014 2:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Retention of litigation files

That is, a shorter retention (date driven if practicable) for the core pieces of information, and even shorter retention for the less substantive or duplicative info. 

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]