‘‘Records Management Law”—a Necessary Major Field of the Practice of Law

Abstract

This article outlines the divisions of work of the records management lawyer specialist. Electronic records management technology is sufficiently complex, unregulated, and important to everyday living and to legal proceedings and services, as to make necessary records management law as a specialized field of the practice of law, and the records management lawyer a necessary specialist. Such specialist will work with litigation lawyers and with experts in electronic records management. The current electronic discovery specialist will become the records management lawyer, aiding all uses of electronic records as evidence. Teaching clients to index all significant records so that their lawyers can search their electronic indexes for discovery purposes. That will eliminate the high cost of discovery problems and the need to use predictive coding and other TAR devices.The author has worked with experts in electronic records management for many years. As a result, the serious defects commonly found in electronic records management systems are listed, along with their vulnerable dependence upon millions of lines of software code. The innovations that a specialist records management lawyer will use are outlined. Because of societies’ very heavy dependence upon electronic records management technology, the legal infrastructure necessary to control its use will be as great as that required for motor vehicles. The records management lawyer will have to be part of that legal infrastructure, and records management law will be an important area of the practice of law. It will require a continuing relationship with commercial and institutional clients so as to provide preventive legal services and not just remedial legal services.