When Dublin San Ramon Services District needed help with their Records Management situation, they turned to Robert Blatt and Virginia Jo Dunlap of Electronic Image Designers, Inc. (EID) to help them navigate the world of electronic content management (ECM). The District selected this team partially due to the fact that Jo was the project [...]
The authenticity of electronic records is becoming as important as capturing and maintaining electronic content. Questions have been arising in lawsuits and criminal prosecutions about whether electronic records are reliable and trustworthy.
EID principal Robert Blatt and Senior Legal Consultant Jo Dunlap were joined by Steve Levenson to jointly present a Academy session on “Storing and Managing Official Electronic Records” The focus of the presentation was to assist annual conference attendees understand how to best approach tackling the topic of “knowing where your records are.”
Records out of control? Do you have too many electronic copies of one document so you don’t know which version is the latest? You know you want (and need) to fix it, but how do you start? Where to start is actually easy. Begin with an assessment to determine exactly where your records are and [...]
Not every product fits every need. There are niche players; there are large enterprise products; there are small departmental solutions. Know what you need before you ask vendors to provide a quote and bid so you can properly evaluate the solutions.
Drafters of AIIM Recommended Practices -1 (section 5.3.3) and ISO 15801 used the term “Trusted System”, they had more in mind than just the technology driven definition. They envisioned control over the entire environment in which the document/record is created, ingested into and managed throughout the lifecycle, a large part of which is the users.
What Do the new California E-Discovery Rules Mean for the Practitioner?
The reality is that the new California E-Discovery Rules change very little about what is discoverable. Electronic evidence has always been subject to discovery. However, the change to the rules [citation] does highlight the additional responsibilities incumbent upon practitioners, both litigation and business advisors.
Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) offering an integrated workflow engine or integrating the workflow engine, with various workflow products readily available throughout the industry.
That type of “adverse inference” instruction could easily tip the balance of the entire litigation. So, beware. Failure to maintain all the records of your organization whenever there is a reasonable anticipation that litigation will ensue can seriously damage even the best of cases.
Cost-shifting in federal E-Discovery cases after a party prevails has hit a significant road-bump in the federal courts under the Fourth and Third Circuits Court of Appeals. Both appellate courts have now held that the costs available under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1920(4) are limited to the actual costs of making copies of records — not all the activity leading up to the copy.
