Email Archiving Compliance, E-Discovery Compliance, and FRCP

Many industries (we’ve especially noticed hospitals) are dealing with a growing number of lawsuits each year. This is forcing IT Managers to evaluate their methods for e-discovery of their historical e-mail records. Most organizations are still using tape backups for all their disaster recovery as well as their e-mail archiving. This has become inadequate.

With the passing of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) a few years ago, the landscape has drastically changed.  A key point to FRCP is, organizations must manage their electronically stored information, or ESI, so that it can be produced in a timely and complete manner when necessary.  This includes legal matters. Here are a few things that have become reality:

• The courts no longer tolerate an organization that has not yet implemented timely programs to accurately retrieve email.
• Just implementing a policy for retention is not enough. You must prove that they are enforced at all levels.
• The penalties for failing to meet the FRCP deadlines can be much larger than putting a system in place.
• Limited staff and resources are not excuses for missing deadlines, even for small organizations.

What does this all mean? You now need to have an efficient e-mail archiving and e-discovery solution in place.  There are no exceptions for company size, non-profit status, or foreign organizations.  Courts are no longer lenient or patient for you to come up with the emails needed.  A procedure and policy must be in place.

We have had many clients and prospective clients tell us they’ve spent weeks digging through tape backups to find the e-mails needed during a lawsuit and they plan on never doing anything like that ever again.  Our archiving solution easily integrates with Microsoft Exchange.  So make e-mail archiving and e-discovery part of your complete hosted e-mail solution.  Contact us today for options and pricing.