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Adopting Information Governance in Small and Midsized Firms
The recent focus on information governance (IG) in the legal industry has usually been related to pre-litigation data and information management for clients. The objective of these IG efforts is to prevent the high costs of e-discovery after a litigation has started by implementing pre-litigation policies to regulate a client's data by knowing what data the client owns, where it is, who owns it and how long it should be retained. Concurrently, the law firm itself is undergoing a change in the way it handles its own and its clients' data. The law firm records management industry has been evolving to an information governance framework. The records function within the firm has traditionally been more of a back-end function, with the idea that everything was created in paper, made into an official record, indexed and hopefully regulated by retention schedules.
“But information governance is now making records management one cog in the whole wheel. We're shifting into things like matter lifecycle management, information security, information mobility, matter mobility, especially in law firms, with the transition of attorneys from one firm to another,” says Brianne Aul, senior manager of firmwide records at Reed Smith and steering committee member of the Law Firm Information Governance Symposium. Some of the other elements that make up the IG framework, according to the symposium, are IT systems administration, information governance awareness, firm intellectual property, document preservation, retention/disposition, client information requests, and records and information management.
The DOJ's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance Programs
The parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.
The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar Investigations
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
A Lawyer's System for Active Reading
Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.