LiveOffice Survey Reveals Organizations Are Unprepared for E-Discovery Requests
Press release, June 25, 2007: Nearly one-third of the organizations polled admitted that, even if they had to, they would not be able to produce an email that is a year old;
More than half of IT managers surveyed say they’d rather have a cavity filled than respond to an e-discovery request
TORRANCE, Calif., June 25, 2007 – LiveOffice Managed Messaging Services, a leading provider of on-demand messaging security, archiving and compliance solutions, today released survey findings showing companies are not well prepared for the new amendments made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), which require organizations that operate within the United States to manage their electronic data so that it can be produced in a timely and complete manner. As a result, many IT departments are seeking technology solutions to help implement effective e-discovery plans.
On the heels of headline-making email debacles such as Intel’s anti-competitive lawsuit with AMD that involved missing emails, and the White House situation where the Republican Party was unable to account for five million emails, businesses are recognizing the need to quickly and easily produce emails. Additionally, the amendments made to the FRCP are driving the need for cost effective technologies that simplify the e-discovery process.
The LiveOffice survey, conducted by Osterman Research, polled more than 400 IT mangers and end users nationwide in early June. Survey findings revealed 63 percent of respondents have been required to produce an email as part of a legal action, yet 53 percent admit they are not prepared to meet the new requirements of the amendments made to the FRCP. In fact, one in three (28.9%) organizations admits they are not even aware of the FRCP regulations.
The survey also revealed that when it comes to e-discovery requests, IT managers cringe. The study results show that IT managers find e-discovery requests so painful that dealing with the IRS was the only activity respondents found more unpleasant. In fact, more than half of survey respondents cited that they’d rather have a cavity filled than respond to an e-discovery request.
According to the survey, 52 percent of IT managers polled do not have an e-discovery plan that has been prepared by legal counsel, increasing the chances of costly mistakes. “The cost of being unprepared is huge, and in some cases, catastrophic,” said Matt Smith, president of LiveOffice. “Instead of spending half a million dollars on reviewing information on hard-to-navigate tape back-up systems, companies can spend less than 10 cents a day, per user, using a web-based system to archive emails.”
Despite the fact that several well-known companies have paid the price for not having an effective e-discovery plan in place, nearly one-third of the organizations polled admitted that, even if they had to, they would not be able to produce an email that is a year old. This is likely due to the fact that one in four organizations say they purge their emails manually or automatically after 90 days or less, a practice that is clearly inadequate to meet the needs of most organizations, particularly in light of the recent changes to the FRCP and e-discovery case law.
“No one wants to be the next UBS Warburg, which suffered a $28 million dollar verdict in the Zubulake sex discrimination suit in New York because of e-discovery and records management blunders,” said Ralph Losey, shareholder of Akerman Senterfitt’s, a leading law firm, and co-chair of the its e-Discovery Group. “In many cases, eighty percent of the information in litigation cases is electronic. And in most of these situations, the ’smoking gun’ evidence is found in the emails or instant messages.”
Courts and the recent new amendments made to the FRCP place a burden on legal counsel to ensure that all relevant electronic data is gathered and preserved. Compounding this issue is the sheer magnitude of emails organizations are now managing. Survey findings revealed that a single employee, on average, will send and receive more than 135 emails per day. This means that a mid-sized organization, with 500 employees, will generate more than 17.5 million emails per year. It is the responsibility of the organization to know where and how to retrieve all of these emails at any time; especially in the case of an electronic discovery action.
“Ignorance of technology is no defense,” said Michael Osterman, founder and principal of Osterman Research. “One of the most logical methods for storing electronic data, like emails and instant messages, is having an archiving system, such as the one offered by LiveOffice, which can satisfy all e-discovery requirements.”
LiveOffice offers companies an easy, affordable, and secure email archiving and retrieval solution in a hosted model. At less than $3.00 a month per mailbox, LiveOffice can help a company quickly and efficiently complete an e-discovery request during a federal lawsuit. LiveOffice also offers users unlimited storage, enabling organizations to preserve emails for as long as necessary, without incurring additional storage fees.
LiveOffice Managed Messaging Services is a fully automated archiving system that provides companies with a long-term and effective solution for capturing emails and instant messages. LiveOffice satisfies FRCP discovery requirements by enabling organizations of all sizes to:
* Store and index emails, email attachments and instant messages in a single, highly searchable repository
* Set pre-determined policies so that the archive is populated with pertinent messages that are automatically organized and categorized
* Easily search and produce data in the event of a discovery request
* Manage and optimize server storage space
In addition, for companies with an in-house mail server, LiveOffice’s business continuity and disaster recovery features provide uninterrupted access to messages in the event of a planned or unplanned outage (such as scheduled maintenance or a natural disaster).
Multimedia Elements Available in LiveOffice’s Online Newsroom
* Listen to a podcast featuring the President of LiveOffice, Matt Smith; Founder and Principal of Osterman Research, Michael Osterman; and Shareholder of Akerman Senterfitt and Co-Chair of its e-Discovery Group, Ralph Losey. This panel of experts discusses the struggles IT managers face as they deal with the amendments to FRCP and e-discovery issues.
* View LiveOffice’s Online Press Kit, which provides additional background on the recent FRCP amendments and includes a Checklist to help companies better prepare.
* Link to the LiveOffice del.icio.us page for more industry information about electronic discovery and FRCP: http://del.icio.us/LiveOffice
Invitation to Complimentary Analyst Webinar on e-Discovery Requirements
In conjunction with Osterman Research, LiveOffice will sponsor a Webinar entitled, “How the New e-Discovery Requirements will Change Your Business,” tomorrow at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT. Join Michael Osterman and Matt Smith as they provide insight on why organizations should care about FRCP, how they can prepare for it and how an effective message management solution can help to mitigate risk. To register for this complimentary event, click here.
About Osterman Research:
Osterman Research was founded by Michael Osterman in 2001. Since that time, the company has become one of the leading analyst firms in the messaging and collaboration space, providing research, analysis, white papers and other services. The core of Osterman Research’s capabilities is its market research panel of IT professionals and end users that are regularly surveyed on a variety of topics related to email, instant messaging, spam, collaboration, security, storage, archiving, data retention, compliance and other areas. For more information, contact 1.253.630.5839 or visit www.ostermanresearch.com.
About Akerman Senterfitt
With 500 attorneys and consultants, Akerman Senterfitt is distinguished by its comprehensive Corporate, Real Estate, Construction, Government Relations, Labor & Employment, Litigation, and Intellectual Property practices. Providing services to local, regional, national and international clients, their team of legal advisors and consultants represent private and public companies, government entities, educational institutions and high net-worth individuals in over 40 different practice areas, and provide clients with not only sound legal advice, but innovative and effective business solutions. For more information about Akerman Senterfitt visit www.akerman.com and for details on the firm’s e-Discovery Team go to http://www.e-discoveryteam.com/discovery/index.html. Ralph Losey’s e-discovery blog can be read at http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com
About LiveOffice
LiveOffice LLC is a leading provider of email archiving, instant message archiving, anti-spam, antivirus, compliance, and eDiscovery solutions for businesses. The company’s Managed Messaging Services ensure the integrity of emails and instant messages (IMs), simplify the discovery process, and help companies protect themselves against the risk and expense of lost or misplaced electronic messages. LiveOffice also helps organizations comply with statutory, regulatory, legal and industry-specific mandates.
Founded in 1998, LiveOffice serves a premier roster of clients including Fortune 500 companies and processes and protects millions of messages each day. For more information, visit www.liveoffice.com.
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