My first comment is that if I were in your position, I would inform your
administrator that if he/she believes that your city is exempt from any type
of e-discovery, he/she can respond to the judge when the subpoena comes.

Our department has the same type of policy you described in your message
below.  It is the responsibility of the creator of the record, or the
custodian of that specific record set that has the responsibility of
printing off the e-mail and filing hardcopy in the file or to retain an
electronic copy for the specified retention of that record series.

Our policy is based in part due to our budget constraints for the purchase
of additional tapes to write and retain information longer for each user
rather than for each of the e-mail servers, as well as the space to retain
such records for 10,000 employees.  We are a state agency and our retention
for this record set is longer than other state agencies.

As far as being able to respond to an inquiry as to why you do not have an
electronic record, if your retention schedule is approved by an arm of your
legislature (such as ours) you should be able to provide that approved
schedule as justification to any requester as to why the record in question
was destroyed.  Good Luck!

Diana I. Cleven
Records Officer
Department of Corrections
DMS/BTM
3099 E. Washington Ave.
P.O. Box 8980
Madison, WI  53708-8980
phone/608-240-5741
fax/608-240-3385

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-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Shari Coughenour
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 3:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Electronic Discovery - e-mail practices


Our computer tech committee decided that the best practice is to print out
"important" e-mails and file. Our attorney has been directed to write a
policy on this premise. I will suggest to our attorney to include language
that the records need to be identified and filed by topic/relative nature
following the retention schedule.  My first question to the list is as
"records custodian" what liability would I personally have due to this
policy if we're directed by a court to submit electronic records that we
don't have?

Our city has decided that they're willing to accept the risk of not keeping
electronic information past the length of the backup tape recycle time.
I've forwarded the list's information regarding the e-mail best practices
thread of a week or so ago to the city administrator, city attorney and
technology person in hopes of enlightening them. They perceive me as chicken
little, proclaiming "the sky is falling in". Perhaps they don't perceive the
risk or they are willing to assume the risk.  I had a risk/benefit
conversation with my immediate supervior, the city administrator and he told
me that e-discovery isn't relative to our city. My second question: Am I
really chicken little?  I'm thinking the city is not exempt from lawsuits or
a discovery order. In fact, we do have a lawsuit brewing relating to a land
deal. Fortunately, I've not any e-mails regarding this other than some
records requests for minutes of meetings, which requests are transitory in
nature and not kept.
Thanks for your feedback.


Shari Coughenour, CMC
City Clerk
City of Marshalltown
24 N. Center Street
641-754-5701 ph
641-754-5717 fax
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