It's not a common decency, respect thing for the benefit of clients; it's a professional responsibility, legal ethics thing for the lawyers.  Lawyers are bound by the rules of professional conduct, and the management of client property, including records, is covered under these rules.  Lawyers must abide by them if they want to continue in good standing with their local licensing bar association and if they want to keep from getting sued by current and/or former clients.  There is almost no situation where it's ethically ok to destroy client files without even having an index of what you're destroying, no matter how old the boxes are.  Firms may not want to spend the money or personnel resources to correct the sloppy recordkeeping they engaged in in the past, but choosing not to do so is bad business practice and legally unethical.

--Lee       


Lee R. Nemchek, MLS, CRM
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 Heraldo, Karen (CA - Toronto)
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 1:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ethical Bound to Contact Clients before Destroying old cases

May I ask if it's for most; that reaching out to the client before destroying records is more of a common decency, respect thing? Because from a practical stand point if one has a number of boxes in storage in which contents are not clearly identified and these files go back 8, 10 or 12 years; having it go through an efficient, effective, no mess,  no pain disposition procedure would be everyone's Utopia no?

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Irene Eklund
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 3:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [RM] Ethical Bound to Contact Clients before Destroying old cases

I am just as mystified that those in my law firm are asking this question as well.  I have read your book and completely agree that every reasonable effort to contact the client must be undertaken.   I have been voicing my opinion that this is not a road we should be going down.   I will continue to strongly argue me case about NOT disposing of any files without properly notifying the client.  In addition, we have a number of boxes in our storage company in which the contents are not clearly identified and these are the files which go back 8, 10 or 12 years.  These are the files in which the administrators in my firm as asking the question about whether we can just simply destroy them.  However, I have been trying to make the arguments that we should not make the arbitratory decision and that we still need to recall these boxes and review them to identify the proper files and clients that in these boxes.

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