Jake Frazier is one of the most eloquent advocates of the idea that organisations need to have in place a robust information governance programme which brings together the various departments, including IT and legal, who have an interest in managing data.

I recall speaking to him when he was first appointed to FTI when he emphasised the importance of picking projects which simultaneously mitigated risk, uncovered value and, significantly, were achievable in a reasonable timeframe. If you can quickly show a return, in whatever form, then it is more likely that you can get budget allocation to do some more in the next year.

Keeping data has a cost, in terms of the infrastructure and personnel needed to look after it, and in terms of the prospective or contingent cost of meeting eDiscovery demands, falling foul of some compliance obligation, or having it attacked in a cyber security incident of some kind. There is a balance to be struck between that cost and the investment needed to mitigate the cost and uncover value.

Jake Frazier talked about this at the Lawyer Managing Risk and Litigation 2016 Conference in London in October of last year, and afterwards recorded a video capturing the main points which he had made. It is short and to the point and sets out succinctly what organisations should be doing now, not least with the General Data Protection Regulation on the horizon.

You can find Jake Frazier’s video The Importance of Information Governance, here.

Home