According to this report, a recent survey by Fortiva showed that "94 per cent of those people responsible for email policy do not feel their organization is fully prepared to meet FRCP requirements."
The survey, which was conducted during the last week of February, found that almost half of the respondents (45.9 per cent) have no retention policy for email, an important step in meeting FRCP rules. In addition, only 8.4 per cent of respondents have met one of the most critical requirements outlined by the FRCP amendments: putting a litigation-hold procedure in place. While 10 per cent of respondents have made changes to the policy to meet FRCP, over 20 per cent are still in the planning stage and 36 per cent were not sure if changes were planned.
Additional findings from the survey include:
- 56.7 percent of respondents that are responsible for email policy are in IT, while 6.8 per cent are in the legal department;
- 25.4 percent of respondents said their organization has responded to an e-discovery request at least once in the past three years, while 24 percent didn't know/weren't sure;
- 45.6 percent of respondents said their organization does not have an official email retention policy; users keep their email as long as they like;
- Only 25.5 percent of respondents said that legal counsel directives influenced their retention policy.
(Source: http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1079164.)
