By now, most litigators have come to grips with e-mail and its many problems. We know that the ubiquity and shear volume of e-mail have changed civil discovery forever. We have all become familiar with our clients’ e-mail systems and their policies and procedures for the use and maintenance of e-mail. At the outset of a case we seemingly now spend more time with IT professionals than with in-house counsel, and we all know that it is important how often and when email servers are backed up and where files are stored. What many of us and our clients do not know (or are only learning now) is that millions of employees have been sending millions of messages to each other and to third parties each day—messages that completely circumvent all of the policies, processes and procedures that have diligently been put in place to control the e-mail monster.
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