If you suspected one of your employees of using company e-mails inappropriately  “say sending company marketing plans to a competitor“ you might be tempted to have a quick look at their send folder.  But, without an understanding of your IT system you might inadvertently be creating a smoking gun document? 

What can you do?  The better course of action is to make a bit-by-bit copy of the employee’s hard drive.  Doing so leaves the original document in tact.  The duplicate copy can then be examined without fear altering the original metadata.

This e-mail example illustrates how the advent of technology has contributed to the interdisciplinary character of legal risk management. 

In yesterday’s mail I received a flyer for The Harvard Business School Publishing Guide to Better Business Writing.  What caught my eye was a study it cited of 120 blue-chip American companies that found 1/3 of all employees have poor writing skills — a problem that costs businesses $3 billion to correct.  Wow!

As I continued to read the flyer I noticed that the Guide seemed to focus on how you write more than on what you write.  That approach certainly makes good business sense.  It also helps avoid the creation of smoking gun documents that can later be used as ammunition against the company in litigation and is why striving for clarity and accuracy is rule #7 in my 12 Rules for Avoiding Smoking Guns.  (see further chapter 6 of The Business Guide to Legal Literacy: What Every Manager Should Know About the Law)

When you think about the relationship between poor writing, smoking gun documents, and the cost of correcting those mistakes I think $3 billion is on the low side.  A handful of juicy judgments could easily represent a sizable portion of that amount because what you write about is as important as how you write about.  An offer to engage in price fixing written in perfect English is still illegal.

Good grammar is no substitute for legal literacy. But, combine the two and you have an unbeatable combination that can be used as an effective communications tool to protect the company as well as propel the business to new heights.  That’s one way to leverage a $3B problem into a  $3+B advantage.