A few years ago I did a short stint in the US offices of a Japanese company. I worked with a woman that had been with the company for nearly 15 years, and she never threw anything out. Drove me insane. I can’t stand clutter, and so I tend to throw away anything that doesn’t have an immediate use. She was certainly my alter-ego, never throwing anything out, even communication from when she first started with the company.

Turns out, she was right and I was wrong. Newly released e-discovery rules leave a lot of questions unanswered about how long a company is responsible for keeping electronic communications. The length of time that a company is responsible for providing such communications is left to be determined at the time that a civil suit is filed. Hmmm…