Hi Stephen,

I can speak to the law firm question as I spent 7 years of my life in that
realm. :)

Generally speaking, yes, you can ask and expect a law firm to retain your
records according to your retention periods.  I routinely had firm clients
request their litigation files be destroyed on a certain date.  Keeping in
mind, however, that not all materials in a client's file are the property of
the client.  Certain materials (depending on your jurisdiction) are the
property of the firm and you have little to no control over what they do
with those materials (commonly they include internal communications, intake
and conflicts forms, attorney notes, etc.).

That said, I'll offer this ... law firms are becoming less and less
interested in being free storage for their clients and/or willing to accept
the risk and responsibility for maintaining stuff that isn't really theirs,
especially upon the conclusion of the engagement.  As you pointed to, more
and more firms are writing retention language into their engagement letters
(their contract with their clients) stating that records created and/or
received during the course of engagement will be retained for x years after
conclusion of the engagement, after which time the firm will destroy them
(or return them, or ... any variety of arrangements).  The number of years
can vary dramatically - some as little as one year while others as long as
10.

As a best practice, we would copy then return original documents to the
client as quickly as possible, only retaining originals when absolutely
necessary (and even at that, a copy would usually be used during the active
engagement and the original only used in the event it is needed at trial).
Also, generally, when a client requested return of their file, we would not
make a copy of it.  The only times that took place were when there was some
concern of a future claim and so we wanted to have an exact copy of the file
for our defense purposes.

Occassionally certain portions of a client's file may also be kept for
knowledge management-ish purposes (a brief bank, for example).  For a
particularly novel motion or defense, a firm may keep copies of certain
documents for re-use in the future.  However, the document *should* be
scrubbed if it is not something that was filed with the court (or is
otherwise widely available).

My suggestion to you is to discuss this with outside counsel and see if they
have implemented any such language after your original engagement began.  If
so, you can choose to create an amendment to the engagement letter, or write
something that is equally acceptable to both parties.  Be sure to include
something that addresses how you, the client, will be assured of the
destruction (a copy of the COD, an affidavit, something).

As for the applicability of this concept to other professional service
providers who create and/or maintain files on your behalf (such as a
consultant ...), it would seem to me you should have similar or the same
rights and responsibilities as you do with a law firm and the files they
maintain.

I hope that's helpful.  Feel free to reach out to me directly if I can
answer any other questions.

Julie


-- 
Julie J. Colgan, CRM

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