KNOW, the Magazine for Paralegals Fall/Winter 2013.2 | Page 31

CIOs accountability, on the other hand, stops
short of information stewardship and instead focuses only on technology stewardship, an intermediate step. CIO’s are commonly accountable only for
information in the middle of its lifecycle (storage,
security, and availability), and their control systems
reflect this.
Unlike the world of the CFO, management and
staff generally do what they like when it comes to
creating and (not) disposing of information, creating
a cavernous gap in accountability.
There are no overarching frameworks, few controls, little guidance, no audits, and seldom consequences when staff create and hoard information.
In financial terms, irresponsible creation and storage
of information is like taking on unsecured, uncontrolled debt. It creates risk and encumbers the enterprise with additional costs to support the resulting
digital landfill.
That landfill has been a money pit for corporations and a gold mine, in my experience, for plaintiffs’ counsel and regulatory investigators, leading
to average per case discovery costs ranging from
$621,000 to more than $9 million. That’s a lot of
money for digging through old e-mail.

How did we get here?
We came to this place easily and methodically, by
providing resources of quicklyevolving
technology with no constraints. We came here by
not establishing data stewardship, which is at the
root of organizational confusion about information
governance.
We came here by allowing the “just keep everything” culture to take hold. Ironically, autonomy in
corporate computing does not necessarily lead to
greater productivity. In fact, our laissez faire approach to computer education —little guidance,
hands-off, freedom to make decisions — leads to
lower productivity absent a system for accountability. Without accountability, unproductive behaviors
creep in: spending time on CYA, finger-pointing,
waiting for guidance, ignoring problems, or waiting
too long to act.

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