Bart Lazar Quoted in Compliance Week

The June 12, 2006 issue of Compliance Week includes an article ("Beyond Delete: Intelligent Email Policies") that notes: "Corporate e-mail retention policies continue to be driven by fears of litigation, leading many companies to adhere to strict "save it until you can delete it" procedures. But more nuanced alternatives exist for companies that want their e-mail policies to be motivated more by business needs than legal risks."

"Bart Lazar, an intellectual property litigator with Seyfarth Shaw, acknowledges that much of the development of email policies and compliance procedures "is a reaction to the litigation - and there's a real justification for it," he says. He notes that plaintiff lawyers "can create a second lawsuit, in a sense, by making a big deal about document or evidence spoliation. If they can create a second front, and that second front is litigation over the destruction of evidence, it puts the corporation at a potentially tremendous disadvantage." Fighting litigation on two fronts also costs more money, and can lead to weak positions such as a judge needing to evaluate a witness who may have destroyed evidence."