Extract from John Price’s article “The Hidden Risks of Hyperlinked Files: Navigating Legal and IT Challenges in E-Discovery”
The digital workplace is undergoing a significant transformation. Traditional email attachments, once the gold standard for sharing files, are rapidly being replaced by hyperlinked documents housed in cloud-based platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Drive and Slack. These modern collaboration tools have revolutionized the way teams work, offering seamless access, real-time updates and improved security compared to static attachments.
As with any innovation, progress often comes with its own set of challenges. For legal and IT professionals responsible for ensuring compliance, defensibility, and data retention, hyperlinked files add a new layer of complexity. Dynamic in nature, these links can result in issues such as version control problems, access inconsistencies and conflicting retention policies—factors that can jeopardize compliance and create vulnerabilities in legal proceedings.
To stay ahead, organizations need to adapt quickly and ensure legal and IT teams work together strategically.
