You've Got Trouble! Managin E-mail Liability

The use of e-mail as one of the principal means of workplace communication creates for employers a variety of legal problems because of these three typical e-mail-system features: broadcasting capabilities, perpetual retention, and susceptibility to abuse. Those features can give rise to such legal concerns and challenges as (1) preserving the confidentiality of company information, (2) protecting attorney-client communications between the firm and its lawyers, (3) dealing with e-mails' admissibility into court and their storage during litigation, (4) protecting the firm from liability for employees' misuse of e-mail, and (5) handling employee-privacy claims. These aspects of e-mail also should be of concern to employers: the deletion of e-mail records can be seen as destroying evidence, and tampering with e-mail evidence or refusing to produce it also may be unlawful; e-mails are widely used as evidence in employment-related litigation; numerous e-mails containing inappropriate content may be sufficient ...