Companies that have existed for any period of time can be overwhelmed by the volume of documents they create. The amount of material and data have grown exponentially in the last few decades with the expansion of electronically stored information (e.g., emails, word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations) that may never be printed but nonetheless are documents the company retains. For that reason, it’s important to establish and implement a solid document-retention policy.
A document-retention policy outlines how long documents are kept and when they can be deleted or destroyed. Generally, there is no statutory or common law that establishes a uniform period as to how long documents must be kept. However, there are exceptions for certain regulated industries. For example, SEC-regulated companies must retain emails for three years. In addition, federal employment statutes require that employment records be retained for a certain period of time, the length of which depends on the specific statute.
First, you must examine how long documents and emails will be retained as a general matter – whether it be two, three, or seven years or some other figure – and then recognize exceptions for certain types of records and custodians depending on the industry. While you should retain some documents (e.g., board minutes) forever, most others should have a retention date, after which they can be deleted or shredded. While uniformity and consistency are...
