In the last year or so, many of the firms I work with or come into contact with have finally begun to talk around the subject of managing their electronic records. That's not to say that there has been a rush to implementation. Far from it, most have gone no further than acknowledging that they have a huge amount of electronic documents, as well as being completely overwhelmed by e-mails. Some have opted for the deep storage approach, buy an electronic archive vault and pump everything into it. This certainly helps to free up near-line systems, but seems to me to be the electronic equivalent of paper records management from twenty years ago. It doesn't matter what it is, get it offsite and we'll worry about it later. This policy is now biting a good number of firms, especially with the rising cost of storage and the difficulties associated with implementing a destruction policy when you don't have an accurate picture of what you hold. Lots of records, not too much management.

So why is electronic records management such a problem? On the face of it, it would seem simple. Any firm with a reasonable document management system will have all its documents profiled with matter details, document descriptions, authors, create dates, access records; all the information needed to build a comprehensive records management policy.
The first issue is that electronic documents are squarely in the domain of the IT department. They are responsible for the systems, and may see the issue as one of disc space, network speed and access to current documents. Hence the vault solutions. Records management is far more than just archiving off documents that have reached a certain stage in their lifecycle. Consideration has to be given to what actually constitutes a record. What should happen to a document that meets the record criteria? What will make it a record in the established sense of the word? What are the risks associated with retaining that document, as opposed to erasing it? Are there reasons why access to the document should be restricted, perhaps in a different way to when it was an active work in progress? Will the audit trail be sufficient to meet the requirements of conflict of interest rules, or market abuse regulation? I'm not suggesting that the IT team will not pay due regard to these considerations, or even build an expertise, but they must recognise and involve the Records Manager, or recruit records expertise, as well as taking  risk mitigation advice.

Dependency on outdated screening practices leaving firms exposed to risk

UK law firms remain oblivious to sanctions screening requirements of new and existing clients, and demonstrate a worrying lack of understanding around Her Majesty's Treasury (HMT) screening obligations, according to Compliance Screening and Data Management specialists Datanomic Ltd, and Legal RM, experts in risk management and compliance.

A recent survey of 115 firms in England and Wales conducted by The Law Society revealed that 74% of law firms surveyed have not checked their entire client list against HMT Sanctions lists, and 48% of firms do not screen new clients against HMT Consolidated Sanctions lists. Worryingly, it appears that many firms are still relying on outdated e-verification systems or monitoring systems that are incapable of cross checking aliases, abbreviated names, names that are transposed, or names that are transliterated from foreign characters into Latin characters. This means there is a high likelihood that law firms are unknowingly acting on behalf of terrorists, criminals, fraudsters, drug traffickers, gang leaders and money launderers.

Legal Service Provider standardises money laundering screening using Datanomic's dn:Director Sanctions & PEP Screening Software

AML/Compliance screening specialists, Datanomic Ltd, today announced that legal services provider, DLA Piper, has selected Datanomic's dn:Director Sanctions & PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) Screening software. DLA Piper will be using the software as part of its strategy for achieving compliance with the 3rd EU Money Laundering Directive and other applicable legislation. The Datanomic software will be used throughout DLA Piper's EMEA and Asia operations, which includes more than 40 offices in 27 countries.

Globally DLA Piper has over 3,700 lawyers, more than 2,000 of which are based in EMEA and Asia. The legal practice represents multinational, national and local clients across a range of geographies, including Global 1000, Fortune 250 and FTSE 350 companies or their subsidiaries.

European Law Firm, SJ Berwin, Standardises on Datanomic's dn:Director Sanctions/PEP Screening Software for EU 3rd Money Laundering Directive 

Automated Solution Enables Firm to Pro-actively Screen Its Client Base

AML and Data Quality specialists, Datanomic Ltd, today announced that leading European law firm, SJ Berwin LLP, has adopted and deployed its Sanctions/PEP Screening solution as part of its anti-money laundering strategy to support its compliance with the EU 3rd Money Laundering Directive. SJ Berwin went live with the Datanomic solution in January 2008. The firm uses Datanomic as a major tool for risk assessment and ongoing monitoring.