Re: " Worry about case law once you actually get sued."
I agree, even though I do think we should not underestimate any potential needs of records for litigation. However, I have often sat in meetings with executives and legal counsel during RM/ERM team planning meetings when the team was also trying to think ahead about potential areas of litigation where they might benefit from more strenuous record-keeping (both electronic and paper). It was not unusual to decide that certain business activities required additional records management due to past experiences successfully or unsuccessfully defending themselves in court. However, in some organizations, you would think from the narrow focus on legal issues in the meetings, that the organization was in business just to experience lawsuits.
If we listen to some of the extreme admonitions we hear these days by vendors, RIM professionals, and attorneys, about saving everything just in case you need it for legal purposes, you would think that every organization is in business to someday have a successful day in court. Being successful in court is not the Line of Business for most organizations. We keep records for administrative, historical, operational, regulatory, and legal purposes. Notice that only one of these - operational (Line Of Business) - is not an "overhead" cost. A technology company for instance might be in business to make servers, and the operational record-keeping relative to that would have a real ROI. The other reasons for keeping records are simply sunk costs.
If an organization (usually governmental) has an obligation to preserve as "evidence" the most accurate and complete iteration of a record for historical reasons, including all metadata, that is fine. But I just think that most businesses need to be at least as concerned about records risks from lots of data being retained and available, when there is little ROI for their LOB in saving lots of everything - including metadata.
John
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John Phillips
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Colgan, Julie J.
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 1:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Metadata in the courts
Right on John! I think too often the line between what should be happening in the normal course and what might happen IF we get sued, and the particular facts of such a proceeding, and what the plaintiff/judge MIGHT want to see is what throws us off track.
If a piece of technology unintentionally creates new records (as defined by their legal, business ... Value), then we should manage them ... Even if that record is in the form of metadata. If it doesn't pass the appraisal process as a record, then get rid of it. Worry about case law once you actually get sued.
Julie
Julie J. Colgan
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