IMPACT OF IMPROPER REDACTION ON RULINGS
Safeguarding confidentiality is at the heart of a law firm’s operations. Law firms have a standard to uphold, not just with their clients, but with regulations set forth by federal and state laws. Failing to maintain a high standard of confidentiality can result in legal ramifications or irreparable harm to your client’s business. There is no dearth of recent examples of redaction failures, from small civil cases to cases affecting the highest office in the country.
In 2019, lawyers for former President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, failed to redact the legal pleadings they filed in federal court, accidentally releasing once-confidential information to the public.
In this case, the accidental disclosure of confidential information was likely the result of common redaction tools not being merged with the original document. In other words, an easy and preventable mistake that redaction software could have mitigated.
“Failing to maintain a high standard of confidentiality can result in legal ramifications or irreparable harm to your client’s business.”
As far back as 2017, credit reporting juggernaut Equifax was involved in a serious data breach that affected over 140 million users. Personal information, including users’ names, addresses, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers were accessed by hackers due to Equifax’s decision to not renew their encryption certificate, as well as their failure to redact users’ usernames and passwords. Instead of redacting them, they kept them visible to hackers by storing them in plain text.
If these two examples tell us anything, it’s that damage to reputation, loss of money and legal ramifications abound when incorrect steps are taken to redact private information sensibly.
BENEFITS OF UTILIZING PROPER REDACTION TOOLS
While using improper redaction tools can harm your business, utilizing the proper tools can provide your firm with not only peace of mind, but reduced cost, time savings and strict compliance management.
1. Cost: To redact sensitive information, you will typically assign an associate, assistant or paralegal to perform a manual review of the documents to identify sensitive data hidden within thousands of pages. Whether hard documents or electronic, the hours spent searching for data to redact can turn into astronomical payroll costs. Current redaction software options are much less costly than paying for hours of staff to do the same work in more time.
2. Time Savings: Time is money, and with automated redaction software, your team will be able to spend less time managing the redaction process and more time focused on billable hours. Thanks to the speed AI-powered redaction platforms provide, it’s no longer necessary to spend hours manually poring over documents. Rather than toiling over redacting a 10-page Word document, some of these redaction solutions can complete the same task in 98% less time, often within 2.5 minutes per 10 pages. This blazing fast speed enables your team to spend more time on valuable tasks such as discovery, drafting trial pleadings, preparing hearing and trial binders, etc.
3. Compliance: No human is exempt from mistakes, making manual redaction a risky undertaking, especially in such a heavily regulated industry. To remove as many “what ifs” as possible, AI-powered redaction software can ensure every instance of sensitive material in a document is identified and removed from not just the original file, but from any associated text and metadata files. Hand-in-hand with redaction report logs, these automated solutions can help mitigate the risks of human error and keep your firm compliant.
FINDING THE RIGHT REDACTION SOFTWARE FOR YOU
When selecting the best redaction software for your firm, there are a number of factors to keep in mind, including ease of use, speed, freedom to choose which data to redact, simple automated search functionality, the ability to redact rich content including images and video, and top cybersecurity features to ensure your client data can’t be breached.
Ensuring your client’s privacy, along with the security of your own firm, doesn’t have to be a tedious, time-consuming and resource-draining process. It is possible to remain in compliance without sacrificing accuracy or taking critical time away from your associates. With the right redaction software, your law firm can spend more time on providing your legal expertise and less time worrying about the process.
