Document Management

Managing the massive amounts of paper documents, e-mail and other electronic information that flow into and out of your organization every day may seem like a Herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be. The document management specialists at Warner Norcross & Judd can create a cost-effective and easy-to-follow policy for your company, based on its location, size and type of industry.

Here’s why your company should have -- and follow -- a policy on the retention and deletion of information:

Unnecessary data retention is costly, particularly when your company is sued and has to undertake e-discovery.
- A Minnesota accounting firm determined e-discovery costs $5,000 to $30,000 per gigabyte of information.
- Out of every 1,000 pages of information reviewed in e-discovery, only one page is entered as an exhibit in a court case, according to a study released by Duke University in 2010.
Unnecessary data retention is risky. Obsolete, incorrect or trivial information may be used against your company or misinterpreted by a litigant
Departments often disagree on what data should be retained. While some IT departments favor aggressive deletion, in-house counselors over-collect data because they cannot identify specific content, according to a survey by Enterprise Strategy Group
Unmanaged data becomes clutter. Clutter has a negative effect on productivity and, ultimately, on profit.
- ARMA International estimates that office workers spend an average of 182 hours each year – that’s 7.6 work days – looking for lost e-mails or other electronic files.

The key to an effective data management policy is pinpointing precisely when a document or other piece of information moves from essential to obsolete. We know the federal and state laws that govern document retention timelines and have more than a decade of experience keeping our clients in compliance. Hospitals, manufacturers, financial service providers, global companies with their own aviation departments and others have turned to us for help creating data management policies and schedules as well as training for employees.

As a result, we have developed a database of retention requirements that allows us to quickly and accurately create a schedule for you. Whether your business is manufacturing or accounting, farming or finance, we can help you create and implement a data management policy that will save you money, keep you in compliance and avoid disaster if you end up in litigation.

In addition to creating policies and schedules to manage data, we counsel clients on the most pressing issues affecting records management today. Here are some of the ways we can help:

Information management and litigation readiness

Draft record retention policies, schedules and procedures, including policies to manage email and instant messaging
Data mapping and IT system inventorying and assessment
Create litigation hold policies and procedures
Assemble litigation hold team
Draft eDiscovery response plans
Complete on-site training and compliance assessment

Litigation holds

Secure data and convene litigation hold team
Implement litigation hold policies and procedures

eDiscovery management/Predictive coding

Negotiate eDiscovery obligations
Collect and preserve data
Complete predictive coding of electronic documents

Litigation support

Prepare witnesses and mock trial courtroom
Take and defend depositions
Prepare War room
Access and support outside counsel with matters in Michigan