Corporate Compliance Consulting
Ediscovery
- Ediscovery Planning
- Legal Litigation Hold
- Litigation Response Planning
Our current offerings include Ediscovery planning, assessment and solutions. Also known as Electronically Stored Information (ESI) we can help you with any form of legal Litigation Hold, and Litigation Response Planning (LRP) as well.
All electronic information generated by an organization and stored in any medium is subject to legal discovery. New rules dictate record management requirements that companies must comply with to avoid potential litigation. Failure to produce may result in court sanctions, monetary penalties, and/or adverse inference on the company, including, but not limited, to damage to the company’s image or reputation risk.
Each time an investigation, audit or litigation matter arises, the subject organization is expected to initiate a process of preserving all potentially responsive information commonly known as a “legal hold” or “litigation hold” on any manual or automatic processes that might delete relevant information. The decision of what to include in the scope of a “litigation hold” is thus of great importance.
Electronic discovery refers to the discovery of electronically stored information. Electronically stored information includes email, web pages, word processing files, audio and video files, images, computer databases, and virtually anything that is stored on a computing device – including but not limited to servers, desktops, laptops, cell phones, hard drives, flash drives, PDAs and MP3 players. Technically, information is “electronic” if it exists in a medium that can only be read through the use of computers. Such media include cache memory, magnetic disks (such as computer hard drives or floppy disks), optical disks (such as DVDs or CDs), and magnetic tapes. Electronic discovery is often distinguished from “conventional” discovery, which refers to the discovery of information recorded on paper, film, or other media, which can be read without the aid of a computer. Of course, there is also the discovery of tangible “things” which usually refers to physical objects and property.
Data Privacy (USA & EU) Policies and Procedures
We help you with the development and deployment of risk-based approach for security, regulatory, infrastructure and operational security aspects through extensive research of jurisdictional data privacy requirements that impact data management and restrictions (e.g., where to store, process data, restrictions on data transport, etc…)
We can help you with your corporate wide data governance planning based on compliance with state, federal, industry, administrative and foreign (European Union) regulatory requirements.
As an Example: Mass 201 CMR 17 – Massachusetts Data Security Law
Massachusetts Privacy Law is now in effect. Organizations that own, license, store or maintain personal information about a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts must now establish minimum standards in connection with the safeguarding of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Many of you may not have even heard about it or may have yet to begin to implement plans to meet these standards. We can help. Ask yourself this:
- Are you protecting your customers, employees, donors, students, and faculty information in the event of a data breach?
- Are you doing it in the most efficient and effective way that is right for your organization and its infrastructure?
- Are you sure that your organization has developed the right plan to protect your constituents? Does it align with the institution's goals, delivery of your mission and operational structure?
- Does your Written Information Security Policy adequately protect your constituents?
- Is your organization protected in the event of a breach?
- Have you performed an adequate Risk Assessment, instituted reasonable controls and developed an ongoing approach to sustainable governance?
Records Management
- Retention policies
- Destruction policies
Are you over retaining your corporate and business documentation? Do you have any guidelines as to how long these need to be retained?
Storage costs associated with the dramatic volume increase in electronic records is symptomatic of a larger and often unresolved issue – a lack of appropriate corporate records retention policies for electronic information, including management and disposition procedures.
A “save everything” policy in some cases is appropriate. In most cases however it is not a sustainable policy due to the mounting costs of keeping the data, finding specific data when you need it and locating the data can be a nightmare.
We provide an overall review of your records management policies.
Complete Corporate Consulting Services
- Enterprise wide Risk Management
- Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, 404, 302, COSO, COBIT, AS5, SAS70, GCC assessments, reviews and solutions
- Internal Audits, investigations and confidential reviews
- Complex business, compliance, and legal consulting matters
We can cater our service offerings to meet your needs. We can provide assistance to you on a project by project basis, or select components of an ongoing engagement; conduct audits and investigation ensuring complete independence and devoid of bias all at the same time assuring full and complete confidentiality.
Legal Costs
- Litigation Cost Control
- Review of Law Firm billings, charges
In today’s litigious environment, cost of legal representation is sky rocketing. A lot of companies, employers and individuals are unable to understand various components of expenses. Companies do not have the expertise, knowledge and a thorough understanding of the cost structure and thus find themselves at the mercy of large law firms charging exorbitant amounts of fees. We can help. We can help you/your law firm budget, control costs associated with depositions, legal services and experts. Overbilling fraud occurs and it hurts you, your business and your bottom line.
We can assist you strategically throughout the process without compromising the quality of your legal representation. Contact us at clark@getlegalhelp.com or by phone at 978-266-1028.