KNOW, the Magazine for Paralegals Spring 2014 | Page 24

Information Governance:
The New Frontier for Paralegals

T

he term information governance (“IG”), considered by some to be a relatively new term, has
actually been utilized for more than 10 years. Yet,
there still does not seem to be a concise definition
on which everyone can agree. Googling the term
results in various versions of the following definition, “Information governance, or IG, is the set of
multi-disciplinary structures, policies, procedures,
processes and controls implemented to manage
information at an enterprise level, supporting an organization’s immediate and future regulatory, legal,
risk, environmental and operational requirements.
IG encompasses more than traditional records
management. It incorporates privacy attributes,
electronic discovery requirements, storage optimization, and metadata management.” http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_governance.
Taking this definition and attempting to strip it
down to the most basic level, one might think of
information governance as the alter-ego of document management (think of IG as Superman and
document management as Clark Kent). While they
have similarities, IG quickly shows its superiority
in today’s world of rapidly advancing technology,
much as Superman’s superiority is readily apparent
when he steps out of the corner telephone booth.
This is not to say that document management is no
longer important – it definitely is as there is still a lot
of paper out there. Rather, IG is a more comprehensive, layered process that includes not only managing documents, but also managing (or governing)
electronic data, digital data, metadata, as well as
managing or governing policies and procedures. In
addition to our document management, if we are to
govern digital data, information governance will
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also require an information technology (“IT”) component. If document management is our Clark Kent,
the IT component will be the blue tights bearing
the bright yellow shield and big S worn by our
super hero. Having a good IT department will make
information governance more easily managed.
Our next layer, Superman’s flowing red cape, is
accountability. Helen Geib, Esq., General Counsel
and Practice Support Advisor for Qdiscovery (a
provider of electronic data and document management solutions for law firms and corporate legal
departments throughout the United States www.
qdiscovery.com), believes that the accountability
aspect of information governance truly sets it apart
from routine document management. Ultimately,
someone has to be responsible for making decisions for the IT department.
Ms. Geib, a former intellectual property litigation
attorney, provided some examples of the type of
decisions to be made. For example, what information is available, what information will be kept, why
is the information being re