Be careful what you write

The Economist had an article on the new age of electronic discovery, citing one attorney that it is “the single most significant change to the legal system” in the past few decades, and another corporate counsel that his company spends at least 25% more on legal fees relating to discovery than it did two years ago. On email, it has this to say:

Catty or salacious gossip, the kind that was once swapped at the water cooler, is now often committed to e-mail. This is easy to subpoena and virtually impossible to erase. There is always a back-up somewhere, so even if you delete the e-mail privately denigrating a stock you are publicly urging your clients to buy, it will still be read out in court. If your firm is sued for sexual discrimination, expect the plaintiff to demand all the lewd e-mails your male executives have ever swapped with each other.

Welcome to the age of email. A message sent over the internet is not some private note sent to the recipient only. More and more, email can make or break lawsuits, personal reputations, and even criminal cases. Private, home computers are not off-limits either, which could be subject to disclosure in the event of a lawsuit. Just consider a few examples from recent weeks and months:

• Wal-Mart used emails from a private email account by a fired manager to defend again a lawsuit.
• An English teacher in Korea told an ex-girlfriend he might be HIV positive and told her to get an AIDS test in a five-line email which has since been published to the entire world and gotten him blacklisted.
• An Army recruiter responsible for sending homophobic and racist e-mail to a gay African American man has been “reassigned” to other duties.

Conclusion: be careful what you write. Just imagine that every email you draft could be read by the world.