Missing records leads to tension in Maryland

Friday, September 28, 2012

Sometimes companies don't realize that they should be saving client, business and other records for an extended amount of time. However, these firms can find themselves in hot water if they have to face litigation or ediscovery, requiring the files to be produced.

Missing records that may have been destroyed in Montgomery County, Maryland, have caused tensions between the Brickyard Coalition and the local government, according to Gazette.net. The community is looking to construct soccer fields, but the labor group claims they have the rights to the area. The coalition, the source detailed, maintains that the county destroyed the corresponding records.

However, a circuit court judge may have put a temporary halt on the argument, ruling the county has tried to fulfill information requests, but still has to pay $11,700 to conduct a document search.

This fee would most likely be smaller if the county invested in an electronic information management system. Not only would ediscovery take a short amount of time, but with the use of a simple keyword search, time, money and effort spent trying to find the Brickyard Coalition's records would be lowered.