Iron Mountain's New Litigation Support Solution Cuts Cost and Complexity of Discovery

April 20, 2010

Solution packages technology and consulting services to help ready organizations for litigation; April 28 Webinar will offer tactics for litigation preparedness
Visit Iron Mountain at the 2010 AIIM International Exposition & Conference in Booth #2219

BOSTON, Apr 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), an information management services company, today introduced the Iron Mountain Litigation Support Solution, a new offering to help enterprises find and organize their paper information when preparing for and responding to litigation. Combining records management technology with consulting, Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution helps organizations quickly sift through their stores of hardcopy records and digitize documents so they can be processed more efficiently for legal review. By converting paper documents into electronic files, companies can enable a seamless process for discovering physical and digital information spread across their organization, cutting cost and complexity while improving compliance.

Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution comprises the company's records management software, document scanning, and integration with review and archiving services, providing a suite of tools for accessing hardcopy information, digitizing it and readying it for legal review. Once digitized, companies can load information directly into an electronic discovery (eDiscovery) service, such as Iron Mountain's Stratify Legal Discovery(R), enabling them to move quickly to early-case assessment, document review and production. In addition, organizations can leverage Iron Mountain's consulting expertise to set records policies like retention schedules and legal holds for managing information and the discovery process.

Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution also helps organizations create an information management program that meets complex litigation and discovery requirements by ensuring full chain of custody and accountability. In doing so, Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution improves regulatory compliance, reduces the complexity of the discovery process, increases response time, and helps mitigate the mounting costs of litigation.

"Our customers are coming to us, as the keepers of their information, and asking us to help them make sure they can find information quickly and cost-effectively in the event of litigation," said Chris Churchill, vice president of Document Management Solutions for Iron Mountain. "Because we often already store their critical information, we can image and deliver those documents electronically for litigation review without them ever leaving the security of our records centers or incurring transportation costs. Combined with Iron Mountain's Stratify eDiscovery services, we can provide a complete package for dealing with litigation and discovery quickly, effectively and efficiently."

Litigation, Cost on the Rise

Putting the people, processes and technology in place to respond effectively to litigation requests has become an area of intense focus for organizations, leading to a sharp rise in litigation spending. In the 2009 edition of the annual Litigation Trends Survey Report, international law firm Fulbright & Jaworski reported that more than half (53 percent) of the 408 companies surveyed spend $1 million or more on the litigation process every year. Since 2007, three times as many small companies (those with less than $100 million in revenue) are spending more than $1 million annually on litigation, growing from 4 percent to 13 percent. Among mid-size companies, or those with revenues between $100 million-$999 million, the percentage spending more than $1 million climbed from 26 to 38 percent.

"In today's increasingly regulated and litigious business environment, managing legal discovery and risk mitigation, improving business processes, and controlling costs have become critical to corporate success," said Jarad Carleton, principal consultant, Information and Communication Technologies Practice, Frost & Sullivan. "Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution portfolio of services addresses each of these key areas and raises the bar on litigation readiness, allowing companies to more quickly respond to discovery while helping them to contain legal fees. For those organizations focused on business strategy, process improvement, risk mitigation, and cost reduction, a comprehensive set of services and expertise like this can provide true bottom-line impact for their business."

Iron Mountain's Litigation Support Solution features capabilities for responding to both immediate and future litigation, including:

  • Litigation imaging workflow - ensures security, control and compliance throughout the entire physical-to-digital conversion process with options for Bates numbering, subjective and bibliographic coding, and logical document determination for increased speed and greater accuracy during the review process;
  • Integration with eDiscovery solutions - enables the central management of the entire discovery portfolio while reducing cost and risk, identifying the records needed for a particular litigation and rapid document review for production;
  • Consistent records management - standardized management of both active and inactive records regardless of location or format, allowing for scheduled and secure retrieval/ delivery, search, access, tracking, management, and policy application with clear audit trails;
  • Consulting expertise - Iron Mountain's consulting team advises companies on the information management and discovery lifecycle, including developing retention schedules, identifying key records and building discovery response processes.

Iron Mountain will join with AIIM for an April 28 Webinar on the topic of litigation preparedness that will feature Susan Trombley, director of eRecords Practice for Iron Mountain. The Webinar will offer tips for dealing with the discovery process, from identifying the most susceptible business content to employing records retention schedules for containing cost and risk. The Webinar will also outline proper strategies for managing records and setting effective legal hold processes. For more information or to register, visit http://www.ironmountain.com/company/Are-you-Ready-for-Litigation-.html.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) provides information management services that help organizations lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. The company's solutions enable customers to protect and better use their information--regardless of its format, location or lifecycle stage--so they can optimize their business and ensure proper recovery, compliance and discovery. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain manages billions of information assets, including business records, electronic files, medical data, emails and more for organizations around the world. Visit www.ironmountain.com or follow the company on Twitter at www.twitter.com/IronMountainInc for more information.

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SOURCE: Iron Mountain Incorporated

Iron Mountain
Christian T. Potts, 617-535-8721
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