“Gone, but not forgotten” isn’t really a sentiment that law firms want applied to data that they thought was destroyed. Unfortunately, retiring old laptops, smartphones or other equipment is no longer as simple as picking up a hammer and driving a nail through the hard drive.

Frank Gillman, chief information security officer at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, noted that such an approach is popular among the do-it-yourself crowd. But he thinks that nowadays, people would be amazed at the data a talented forensic technician would be able to recover.