It should not come as a surprise that email is part of the client file. But sadly, few lawyers treat it that way. They leave email lying around, largely irretrievable.

The email problem is not limited to law firms. Every industry is having issues grappling with the storage. In part, email is so cheap and ethereal that it gets tossed around in the wind.

Financial service firms in the U.S. are on board because of regulation under the Investment Advisers Act.

I think it will take a few more law firms getting sued to get them to pay attention to document retention (physical and electronic). Given the status of the economy, that could happen soon.