In today’s digital economy, one of the major pain points facing corporate general counsel—and the law firms and third-party vendors that support them—is the high cost of e-discovery. The failure to implement effective and efficient data disposition processes has sustained a save-everything-just-in-case mentality. Understandably, it is much easier to buy more cheap data storage than to comb through years of data to find out what’s useful and what’s not. Similarly, it’s also easier to dump your entire data stack on a third-party vendor during e-discovery and have them sort it out. But at what price? While prices for individual services like data processing and hosting have dropped dramatically in the past decade, e-discovery spend continues on a steep upward trajectory. With increasing data volumes and complexity, and the proliferation of poor or nonexistent data disposition practices, eventually the costs will become prohibitive for any organization that neglects basic information governance principles.
Developing a formal information governance program can be daunting, but it is critical to lowering your e-discovery, data storage, backup and maintenance costs. It is also crucial to reduce the risks associated with the data that is retained that may become your adversary’s exhibit in court.
