Records Management – 911
Case Study on Information
Retention and Retrievability
Rachel Verdugo
March 23, 2010
Williamsburg, VA
Page 1
Records Management – 911 and Workshop on Four
Case Studies - Overview
Case study workshop
 Case study objectives
Page 2
“911” Call From A Frantic Employee Of A Company
Employee: Help! I need important records!!
Data Manager: Please calm down Sir. What is the records title?
Employee: Title?? Ugh. It is something like Specification IDKNOW
Data Manager: Sir, Do you have the date or the custodian of the record? You
need to provide me with more metadata.
Employee: Can’t you just Google the name in the database? I need it now!
Data Manager: Sir. You need to remain calm. Which repository was the
document placed in?
Employee: The last time I saw the document was on Gawn Astray’s e-mail.
Data Manager: I will see what I can do however it may take a few weeks to
look into it. I can’t make you any promises on whether I will be able to retrieve
your document.
Employees spend 1.7 hours a day finding a documents
Page 3
Case Study - Workshop
Case Studies are real situations that occurred from various companies
Four Case Studies:
1. Company is notified of a legal hold
2. Program Manager requests all first articles for 2 years
3. Company has an initiative to destroy paper records
4. Company is creating standard metrics (meta data)
 Case Studies will provide a problem solving opportunity around records
management application
 Each group will be able to develop a solution from their own work
experience and group collaboration
Real situations that need records management solutions
Page 4
Work Shop - Case Studies Objective
We will break-out into 8 groups:
Each group is given a case study and will have 45 minutes to work on the
questions and to create a go forward plan
Each group will have 15 minutes to share results of each case study
Summarize results from the case studies from each group
Workshop is to share and collaborate on lessons learned
Leverage ideas and share experiences
Page 5
ANY QUESTIONS?
BREAK-OUT INTO GROUPS
Page 6
“911” Records Management Court Cases
 Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC
Jury awarded the plaintiff a total of $29 million in compensatory and punitive
damages
UBS Warburg LLC failed to preserve all potentially discoverable data
(UBS produced 100 pages of documents as opposed to Ms. Zubulake produced 450
pages of documents)
Counsel failed to communicate a “litigation hold“ to all key players
 In 2002, five major Wall Street brokerages (Duetsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan
Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney, and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray) agreed to pay a total
$8.25 million in fines ($1.65 million each) for improperly storing e-mails
Failure to produce records (digital) can results in fines
E-mail was a main source of the business records and should have been both safe
and accessible
Increase in court cases due to lack of Company e-mail retention policies and procedures
Information by James G. Barr
Page 7
Why is Records Management Urgent to our Business?
Records are evidence of the company’s operations, functions, decisions,
organization policies, and procedures.
Over retention of documents can cost additional storage, IT assets, and
litigation for a company
Unclear retention periods may cause:
Lost time - Where is that information?
Loss of knowledge - Why didn’t we learn that lesson last time?
Confusion - Is this the final report?
Control weaknesses - Who approved that Gate package? Did he
have authority to sign that package?
Company policy should state the retention period of documents and should be part of
required training
Page 8
What Are the Benefits of Proper Records Management?
Benefits:
 Minimize litigation risks
 Preserve the corporate memory
 Protect intellectual property
 Safeguard electronic records not stored in traditional repositories
 Safeguard vital information
 Reduce operating costs
 Improve efficiency and productivity
 Ensure regulatory compliance
 Support better management decision making
 Through complete metrics suites
 Through aggregation for Knowledge Management purposes
Legal holds are compliance driven and can be costly
Page 9