eDiscovery is here to stay

By Judi Hasson

This is the first in a series of FierceCIO special reports
on eDiscovery

Are you ready for eDiscovery? You had better be because CIOs who are unprepared could find themselves facing serious headaches in the future. A year ago, the federal courts amended the rules of civil procedure to require that companies turn over all electronic data and emails if they receive a discovery order in any kind of lawsuit. This has prompted legal departments and CIOs at many companies to start investing in tools to keep track of electronic data and respond quickly if they receive an order to comply.

Just how do you keep track of e-documents in the event of this kind of legal order, and how can you comply quickly--usually within 30 to 60 days of the request? “Large Fortune 500 companies know they have to be prepared for eDiscovery changes,” says Sean Culbert, senior partner at IBM for risk and compliance financial services. Despite this fact, he says that a majority of companies are not yet completely ready to deal with it.

IBM is selling a variety of services in the eDiscovery space and is developing offerings on top of what companies already have, Culbert says. The first step in dealing with eDiscovery is records management. The next step is preserving information across all environments, says Gary Rylander, a partner in IBM’s global business services, eDiscovery and records management division. “Companies need to get religion on records management. They need to be able to find relevant evidence in an organization, preserve it and collect it,” Rylander says.“Essentially, it reduces the issues of eDiscovery to…manage the risk,” he adds.

One of the positive things that a CIO can do is reduce the body of over-retained information, Rylander advises. For any CIO, this can be an overwhelming task. But it is essential to figure out a way to get it done. And if you can reduce the number of documents floating around in an infrastructure, you can save a tremendous amount of money. Culbert estimates that most companies spend 2-4 percent of their revenues on legal services, including eDiscovery. But it is a cost that can rise dramatically if there are no systems in place ahead-of-time to handle the eDiscovery process.

IBM has a program for companies seeking to get ready. “We know by category of industry you are in, where lawsuits come in,” Culbert says. If you haven’t figured out how to harness your electronic documents, the time to do this is right now. And if you don’t have a roadmap in place, you will eventually need one to avoid scrambling on a court-ordered deadline and the mistakes that might take place by last-minute maneuvering.