Where companies store their electronically stored information (ESI) is of no concern to attorneys… right? Say what?

There’s an on-going debate over the question of where the “best” place is to store a company’s ESI for legal reasons; in the company’s own facility (on-premise) or in a third party’s  facility (hosted; also known as “storage as a service”, SaaS). The answer to this question really depends on several factors. There are three main questions to ask yourself when considering this question from a legal perspective; where’s the best place to store the organization’s ESI? The first question to ask is; is my ESI secure and can I prove it has not been altered in any way; in other words is it defensible? The second question to ask yourself is; can I access my ESI quickly enough to place legal holds and perform searches based on discovery requests? And the third question is; do I have access to the full ESI data set for ECA purposes and to insure I can fully respond?

Let’s review these topics you need to keep in mind when dealing with ESI in litigation. First, when litigation is reasonably obvious, you have a responsibility to immediately protect all ESI which could be responsive in the approaching civil case. This responsibility is an absolute requirement in U.S. Federal courts and most state courts. There are few if any excuses a Judge will swallow for a responder inadvertently deleting potentially responsive ESI after your legal hold responsibility has been triggered.

Second, the time frame you’ll have to fully respond to an eDiscovery request is generally much shorter now than in the past (pre 12/2006). Quick and complete access to all potentially responsive data is extremely important when responding to an eDiscovery request.

And third, good intentions can mean something to the court. A company that actually plans and documents their processes etc. for litigation hold and eDiscovery will mean something to the Judge (possibly) if you have an inadvertent ESI deletion.