Current company policy requires all materials used for a litigation to be retained for 8 years from close of matter with the settlement/final judgment to be retained for 20 years from close. We're looking more at the 8 year portion which is everything but the settlement, and if it can be subdivided into smaller and shorter retention buckets in a way that makes sense and is practicable.
Some of our litigators are interested in what other corporate counsels are doing. How they bucket/arrange their litigation matters with respect to minimizing what actually needs to be retained versus what's nice to have...but up to a point.
I presented them with the ABA rules as well as state level requirements. From my research, the state/governmental requirements are aimed at governmental agencies and not corporate counsels, and ABA rules are more like recommendations. And for our litigation attorneys at least, they're cautious, and want to know who/how the recommendations are followed or used, before advocating any policy change.
Stephen Cohen, CRM
MetLife | Legal Affairs | 212-578-2373
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nemchek, Lee
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2014 8:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Retention of litigation files
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...
--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
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www.oaktreecapital.com
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