Email Management Survey: Employee Habits Increase Company Litigation Exposure

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Recommind, a leading provider of enterprise search, automatic categorization and eDiscovery systems for law firms and enterprises, today released the findings of a recent study conducted with analyst firm Osterman Research, which reveals that many North American organizations may not be prepared to meet the eDiscovery requirements of litigation or regulatory investigations. The research also shows that costly storage resources are spent stockpiling email messages that are of little or no value to the organization and could even subject companies to unnecessary exposure in subsequent litigation. These results suggest that such operational challenges are due in large part to antiquated, overly manual email management practices that rely on inefficient and ineffective identification of content by the user.

Over 70 percent of the employees surveyed reported that they kept copies of some or all of their emails in external locations such as a .PST file on a localized computer hard drive. The practice of retaining copies of numerous email messages removed from the auspices of a centralized email management system puts IT departments and general counsel‘s offices in a difficult position when required to produce electronic information pursuant to litigation or investigation, unnecessarily exposing the organization to greater risk of significant eDiscovery costs, potential sanctions and increased potential litigation exposure. As a result of amendments made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) in December 2006, organizations must locate, preserve and be able to produce ESI (Electronically Stored Information) such as email that may be relevant to a particular case quickly, accurately and comprehensively. Companies whose employees retain email in external locations outside of the company-governed information retention process must typically either utilize unnecessarily expensive “legal hold“ collection processes or risk adverse discovery or investigatory findings, potentially exposing the company to severe monetary penalties if key pieces of evidence cannot be produced.

Another notable conclusion of the study found that a preponderance of the survey participants utilized storage resources to retain emails that were not relevant to the company or otherwise considered business records. Respondents reported that over 58 percent of the emails that they received and filed on a daily basis could best be classified as ‘nice to have‘ or ‘unimportant.‘ Additionally, in many cases companies are automatically retaining these same messages in costly, server-based email archives, further driving up storage costs. To make matters worse, some of these messages – many of which would not have been kept if accurately categorized as non-records in the first place – may later be requested and produced as part of subsequent litigation, thereby unnecessarily driving up the company‘s potential litigation exposure. One positive finding from the study related to employees‘ attitudes: fully 90 percent of those surveyed acknowledged that their employer had the right to control the retention of their work email, while another 83 percent understood that their email could be used as evidence in a lawsuit.

“While employees have certainly become savvier about the importance of email in litigation, these findings illustrate just how challenging and costly litigation preparedness can be when employees are not acting in concert with their IT and legal departments,“ said Craig Carpenter, vice president of marketing at Recommind. “Without the proper technology in place, legal departments face an expensive, no-win situation: either handle each investigation or lawsuit in a reactionary, ad hoc manner or risk far greater exposure through the potential spoliation of ESI or production of email which should never have been retained in the first place. True litigation preparedness requires that companies be able to fulfill their eDiscovery and compliance obligations irrespective of employee behavior. The good news for employers is that appropriate technology – like Recommind‘s Decisiv™ Email solution – exists today and can be deployed cost effectively with little to no impact on employee habits.“

Decisiv Email is an email management, collaboration and filing application that uses sophisticated, highly innovative categorization and conceptual search technology to automatically tag, organize and file email messages and associated attachments with virtually no user involvement required. Decisiv Email greatly increases collaboration within an organization by accurately correlating email-based information with related information in email archives, content management systems, document management systems, records management systems and myriad other information repositories. By automatically organizing and filing information as it enters and leaves the email system, the solution significantly reduces time spent sorting through email correspondence in search of specific data. And by allowing only business records to be stored and utilizing an innovative single object storage infrastructure, Decisiv Email delivers up to 500 percent in storage savings over traditional e-mail archiving systems while substantially reducing litigation and discovery risk.

Recommind on the leading edge of search, categorization and eDiscovery solutions

Recommind provides an unparalleled information management platform that makes vast amounts of data accessible, relevant, actionable and secure for the world‘s largest enterprises and law firms. Powered by Recommind‘s patented MindServer™ conceptual search and categorization technology, Recommind‘s innovative solutions effectively secure, organize, categorize, file and retrieve an organization‘s universe of data to concurrently address the most pressing records management, compliance, eDiscovery and ILM needs of today‘s businesses. Recommind‘s solutions unify applications and databases across an entire organization, making the right information and expertise available to the personnel who need it quickly and efficiently, resulting in tremendous productivity gains for the entire organization.

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 Recommind

Recommind’s enterprise search and categorization platform automatically organizes, manages, and distributes large volumes of information from multiple sources. With faster access to the right information, organizations can save time, enhance the quality of work product, increase the value of information assets, and improve competitiveness and profits. Recommind customers include Bertelsmann, BMW, Cleary Gottlieb, Davies Arnold Cooper, Novartis, Lewis Silkin, Shearman & Sterling and the Australian Government. Recommind is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, London, and Bonn, Germany. For more information, email info@recommind.com, or go to www.recommind.com.