What do you want for Christmas? New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?

  • Article

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas! As if you didn’t have enough to worry about with last minute shopping, snow days, etc. this December….now you have some new e-Discovery procedures to worry about. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), amended in August 2006, went into effect on December 1st, 2006.

What Does It Mean To Me?

It means is that the rules of email retention for evidence have just changed. It defines what is acceptable for discovery and disclosure for legal cases. It affects every single business, regardless of size or non-profit status. No one gets an exemption for this one! Any business, person, or organization involved in a federal court case is considered to be impacted. A broad definition of what is considered “electronically stored information” has been defined. IT Departments will need to know:

  • What email is stored anywhere in the organization.
  • How to produce email and how much effort it would take to produce it.
  • When and how email may be deleted.

…and you should take it seriously, a single delay can be expensive. One U.S. District Court ruled that an appropriate fine for a delay was $50,000!!!  

(Thanks to the guys at Socha Consulting for this update! Check out their post for the finer details.)