Get up-to-speed on eDiscovery

In a new survey conducted by Canvass Opinion among in-house legal departments at 200 Fortune 500 companies, 18 percent lawyers say IT that has the primary responsibility for developing eDiscovery strategies in their organization. And that means the hat has been passed. The role of protecting electronic documents falls squarely in the lap of the CIO--whether or not he or she wants the job.

It's an issue that many CIOs have not seen as an important one. A year after federal courts expanded the rules for civil procedure to include electronic documents, many IT departments are still far away from the reality of making it work. "IT thinks it is not their business and yet all of the data and policies that directly impact the risk are controlled by IT such as document retention, preservation, archiving and email management policies." said Kristin Nimsger, president of Kroll Ontrack, the company for whom the survey was conducted.

If you are in the crowd of naysayers, it's time for a reality check. Working with a company's legal department, every CIO must come up with a strategy right now, not later, because if your company is fined or spends money trying to comply at a later date, the IT department will be blamed.

For more on the CIO and eDiscovery:
- See this Infoworld Article