Press Releases — October-December, 2006

LexisNexis Applied Discovery Launches Consultancy to Help Companies Retain, Manage Documents Effectively In Era of Increasing Corporate Litigation
Proliferation of electronic documents, new Federal rules on e-discovery drive corporate counsel to minimize risk

SAN DIEGO, CA, October 23, 2006 - Today LexisNexis Applied Discovery, a leading provider of electronic discovery services to the nation’s top law firms and corporations, announced the launch of the Strategic Records and Information Management (sRIM) consulting group.

At a time when U.S. companies face an average of 305 pending lawsuits worldwide¹, and with the overwhelming majority of business documents created and stored electronically, the sRIM group fills corporations’ need to minimize their legal risk through effective and predicable document retention programs, to effectively participate in litigation and to maximize their own time and budget resources.

The announcement came as Applied Discovery participates in the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Annual Meeting in San Diego. 

 “In today’s digital business world, corporations typically have multiple, often inconsistent, systems for managing documents and email,” said Scott Nagel, vice president and managing director of Applied Discovery. “This has real implications when it comes to litigation – exposing companies to increased expense and, in some cases, harsh sanctions or adverse rulings. The sRIM group helps corporate counsel transform their company’s data chaos into a strategic document retention program to ensure they’re prepared to manage whatever discovery requirements come their way with minimal expense and business disruption.”

Another important factor driving corporations to take a serious look at how they retain documents are changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure set for implementation late this year. Those changes put electronic evidence on the same footing as other discoverable evidence, and mandate early discussion of and agreement on electronic discovery.  Companies that have an effective data retention and management policy will be prepared for litigation within this new environment and may be protected by the safe harbor provision of the new rules.

Additionally, compliance with provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley and SEC regulations underscore the need for effective document retention planning as offered by sRIM. 

Consultants from the sRIM group work directly with corporate counsel and IT departments to develop comprehensive document retention programs that complement and enhance current operations rather than disrupting them. The group also works with law firms to help them offer their clients additional value in the form of document management and e-discovery planning services.

In either case, sRIM focuses in five primary areas:

In addition to minimizing risk, effective document retention helps deliver corporate savings. Corporations spend an estimated 71 percent of their legal budgets on disputes^2;. Part of this cost is related to the time, effort and technology needed to track down and process documents from disparate sources in the e-discovery process. However, uniform and enterprise-wide document retention policies and procedures can greatly speed the process to reduce these costs.

The sRIM group’s roster of experienced consultants combines discovery expertise, IT experience and the document management and retention pedigree possible only from Applied Discovery^® and LexisNexis^®. This unique combination of skills offers corporations the ability to bridge technical and legal worlds in setting up workable, defensible records retention programs.
sRIM services, along with the complete set of discovery support capabilities of Applied Discovery (www.lexisnexis.com/applieddiscovery), are also accessible via LexisNexis^® Total Litigator (www.lexisnexis.com/litigation/) - the only single, online destination offering litigators the tools and services needed to manage cases throughout the litigation process.

About LexisNexis

LexisNexis^® (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leading provider of information and services solutions, including its flagship Web-based Lexis^® and Nexis^® research services, to a wide range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. A member of Reed Elsevier [NYSE: ENL; NYSE: RUK] (www.reedelsevier.com), LexisNexis serves customers in 100 countries with 13,000 employees worldwide.

¹ Litigation Trends Survey, Fulbright and Jaworski, October 2006
² Litigation Trends Survey, Fulbright and Jaworski, October 2006