| Policies and Procedures
A critical part of any information management project is development of administratively and fiscally sound, and legally sufficient, records management policies and procedures, and ensuring that actual practice within the organization complies with them. As part of any records management initiative, it is critical to survey and analyze existing record management policies, procedures and practices, and as appropriate, revise or supplement them. Areas of review should include:
- Records storage and life-cycle, including active file management
- Records disposition and purge;
- Legal holds and purge suspension; and
- E-mail policies.
Effective policies and their implementation, when combined with effective records retention schedules, will yield significant benefits for any organization. Reduction of the amount of paper and electronic information will yield significant cost savings and future cost avoidance. In addition, organizational efficiency will be significantly enhanced: workflow utilizing active information and records will substantially improve, yielding greater operational efficiency and customer service. Personnel will spend less time in information search and retrieval, and search activities will be significantly more productive in terms of actually finding the needed information, again yielding greater efficiency and customer service. These factors will in turn result in increased overall efficiency, lower costs, better service, and in turn, higher profitability and greater customer satisfaction for the organization.
Additional benefits will arise in other areas as well. Effective and properly implemented procedures developed in light of regulatory considerations, case decisions and other legal authorities, will insulate any organization to a considerable degree from legal liabilities and costs associated with litigation. The costs associated with production of information during litigation can be quite substantially reduced by reducing the amount of information under management, (and which must be searched and ultimately produced from) and by efficiently managing that information set. In addition, well-formulated policies and procedures will substantially reduce the likelihood that a court for improper information management practices will sanction the organization.
We carefully analyze the workflow, business culture, legal climate and other factors surrounding an organization. We then review applicable law and legal doctrine. And in conjunction with client personnel, craft policies and procedures that provide the maximum degree of benefit while creating the minimum amount of administrative burden. | | |