IT and legal are in many respects like oil and water. On the one hand, IT, which is tasked with the creation of technological architecture that supports the entire enterprise, applies a strategic and methodical approach to the investment and assessment of programs and tools used by an organization. In stark contrast, legal is a department ruled by crisis; regulatory action, legal hold or pending litigation can drastically change the expectations they have of data retrieval in a heartbeat.
The friction between the two departments was recently highlighted in research conducted by Iron Mountain and the International Data Corporation (IDC), with findings showing a difference of opinion concerning who should be overseeing data management for an organization.
