Presentations/Proceedings

This working group focused on the IT and legal departments challenges' in preserving, collecting, and managing data in a complex corporate setting.  Both departments need to be in lock step because the legal department has the obligations while IT has the data.  The materials include discussion cards and key takeaways.

Managing legal holds has become increasingly complex.  For companies in high tech, global or data-intensive environments, it's particularly difficult to track the people and systems that fall under legal hold.  Relying on permanent retention of all data just shifts the enormous legal burden to IT without commensurate controls and transparency.  This half day CGOC event focused specifically on this challenge.

In this working group, two key conflicts were explored to help legal departments reduce risk and cost.  The first conflict was the inherent differences in IT and Legal department points of view and processes which presents a tremendous challenge to preserving data efficiently and reliably.  The second conflict was the conflict of law between US discovery obligations and EU privacy laws.  With specific prohibitions against searching and transporting employee and customer data, companies have very tough choices when US litigation or discovery encompasses data beyond our shores.

The complete proceedings from the 4th Annual CGOC June Workshop - The Intersection of Privacy, Discovery and Retention Obligations.  Featuring guest experts from BP, GE, Citigroup, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Seyfarth Shaw and more.

The complete proceedings from the CGOC Spring Series 2008 - The State of the Art in Legal Holds & Retention, featuring case studies from Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Travelers, and more.

Tom Lahiff, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Former Assistant General Counsel, Citigroup

Determining when litigation is reasonably anticipated continues to be a challenge in large, complex companies. While fact specific, there are a number of circumstances that are consistent triggers for legal holds. Because your decision making will be scrutinized through the lens of hindsight, establishing the basis for you policies and decision making are essential to defending the choices made. Tom will address legal hold triggers and discuss the consequences of failure to initiate holds early or broadly enough. This session will look at relevant cases, decision making challenges, and policy documentation issues.

Dan Kulakofsky, Managing Counsel and Director of eDiscovery, Travelers

For the companies that are just beginning their legal holds process, tips from someone that has already gone through it are invaluable. This case study provides the lessons learned as Travelers implemented their preservation program as well as offers guidance and “what we would have done different” advice.

Harry Pugh, Executive Vice President, Operations & Technology Policy Coordinator, Citigroup

Citigroup began its global retention program several years ago for risk management and compliance purposes and today it has one of the very few effective enterprise retention management programs in operation. The program has driven strategic benefits by enabling the company to disposition legacy data, normalize data management, and drive out waste.

Kathy Harris, Managing Director, Discovery and Regulatory Response Team, Merrill Lynch

An analysis of the trajectory of strategic change over the last 24 months, process and practice accomplishments and work yet to be done. This case study includes a thoughtful review of typical organizational and operational barriers and the opportunities in retention and discovery that the future holds.

Eric Saltzman, CFO, PSS Systems

Predicting discovery costs using a "litigation funnel" methodology -- the same techniques applied to sales forecasting. Corporate legal teams have a wealth of data on the likelihood of matters progressing through various stages of litigation, the volume of potentially discoverable information associated with various types of matters and the costs associated with culling, reviewing and producing information. Using this data in conjunction with a dedicated tool for managing the "litigation funnel" will yield better predictability on discovery costs, improve visibility on the timing and nature of those costs, and the ability to reduce expenses.

Complete proceedings from the 4th annual CGOC Summit - Knowledge is Power, Ignorance is Expensive.  Guest experts at the Summit included Amgen, Merrill Lynch, Travelers, Citigroup, First Data Corporation, CIBC, and more.

Jim Mitchell, Managing Director, Huron Consulting Group

While all the rage, data source mapping presents a tremendous challenge to large companies because of the complexity of information flows, the diversity of data sources, and the geographic distribution of the business.  Corporate map project leaders will discuss how detailed the mapping should be and what you can expect to find as you undertake this effort.

Deidre Paknad, President & CEO, PSS Systems, Founder, CGOC

While most companies are focused on preparing to disclose data sources, fewer have focused on the implications and aftermath of these disclosures - which are the start line, not the finish line.  Disclosing what you will preserve early in litigation raises the stakes for your preservation and monitoring process as litigation unfolds over months and years.  Given the rate of change in most IT environments, it's essential to both monitor compliance with system-related preservation duties and to monitor changes in the system environment so legal properly represents the data sources. 

A webcast with Tom M. Lahiff, Jr., former Assistant General Counsel, Citigroup, and Deidre Paknad, President and CEO, PSS Systems
On October 30, 2007, Tom and Deidre shared their views on what outside counsel should consider vis a vis their clients legal holds processes. Tom outlined the impact of organizational complexities to ever-present cost-cutting pressures felt by in house legal in F500 companies. Deidre highlighted the parallel complexity that stems from managing the entire legal holds process — not just the e-discovery — and how in-house can leverage automation to manage it successfully.

Harry Pugh, Executive Vice President, Operations & Technology Policy Coordinator, Citigroup

Approaches to quantifying and characterizing legacy data to enable proper disposal and drive down costs. A case study on how retention best practices can drive real benefits.

Matthew Cohen, Kevin Brady, and Deidre Paknad presented Accelerating the Dialogue between Legal and IT at the CGOC Discovery Lunch Series on October 20, 2005.

Meredith Kotler and Deidre Paknad presented Litigation Holds Checklist at the CGOC Discovery Lunch Series on September 26, 2005.

Lisa Sotto, Partner, Hunton & Williams, John Woods, Partner, Hunton & Williams and Deidre Paknad, President & CEO, PSS Systems presented The New Role of Record Coordinators: The Connection to Discovery at the CGOC Discovery Lunch Series on September 15, 2005.