Federal Records Act: Developing a Robust Document Retention Schedule: Best Practice in Setting a Reliable Policy

According to the Federal Records Act, developing a robust document retention schedule is the best way to set up a defensible ediscovery policy. Frequently employees are not sure about the ediscovery laws to be followed, staff files to be retained and the legal record keeping needs. Today most federal as well as state agencies have clear requirements for the retention of records and laws that need to be followed. Federal contractors, subcontractors and employers, all need to confirm to these laws.

Having a reliable program for document retention is the best way to ensure compliance. Records should include all the emails exchanged either between employees themselves or sent outside. In addition to emails, all Word documents, Excel files, sound files, and other miscellaneous files are all admissible in court. So employees need to ensure periodic record and storage of these files at a safe location. Apart from recording the data, there has to be a specific schedule detailing how long certain records will be retained and when they will be deleted.

When the court asks for these electronic records, a firm should display that they were in compliance with the laws before the request was sent out. It is not sufficient to start recording and keeping a database of these files after the court order comes in, because if that is the case then a hefty fine could be levied on your firm. For this reason the Federal Records Act encourages firms to create a retention schedule for all documents.

Making the schedule is not an easy job. As far as paper documents are conce
ed, recordkeeping is easy. Accurate recordkeeping in case of digital documents is not so simple as they can be easily damaged or deleted. Creation of a separate team exclusively for proper retention of electronics documents may be necessary.

Having the right documents retention schedule will not only keep you and your company on the right side of the law, but it will also save you a lot of money in the event of a court order. Several companies including Morgan Stanley have ended up paying fine for noncompliance. Apart from the monitory loss, this also affects a company's goodwill.