Extract from Nathan Curtis and Kevin Taylor’s article “The State of Information Governance and the Disconnect Between Policy and Reality”
Law firms are playing a game of catch up as the sheer volume of data, both in hard copy and electronic form, they routinely handle continues to skyrocket exponentially. To further complicate matters, most of this data is sensitive and/or confidential, driving the emergence of firms adopting robust information governance (IG) policies/strategies. Chief legal officers rank key components of a comprehensive IG program, such as cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and data privacy as the most important issues they face year over year, according to the 2023 ACC CLO Survey.
IG programs are designed for the protection, management, security, and availability of a firm’s information, in an environment fostering compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, while simultaneously improving the firm’s overall efficiency and productivity. At the core of all IG is the desire to maximize the value derived from data, while mitigating the risks and roadblocks to compliance that maintaining it presents.
An effective IG policies-and-procedures framework guides employees on appropriate data use, where information should be stored, and how and when information should be disposed of (returned to client, destroyed, or converted to vital record status). IG programs further help with regulatory and outside counsel guideline compliance (OCG), operational efficiency, and reducing discovery costs.
