Keeping Cards: The Importance of Document Retention Policies in Companies

[turbo]

Sometimes it's all the other supporting documents that are important even with a contract dispute, just to show that one particular interpretation of it is right or wrong, or that the work was done as specified in the contract. You'd think after that experience, they'd have learned to start archiving more than just contracts.

Sometimes, intent is WAY too subjective without supporting documentation. Any company that has millions riding on contracts and doesn't document (and archive) everything deserves whatever losses they incur. Storage is cheap, though scanning and conversion are labor-intensive.

 

[Evo]

That's exactly the sort of reason I thought a company would put the effort into keeping all their old documents like that, even if it's just stuff scanned and stored electronically...or just dumped into a warehouse that lawyers can spend their time hunting through if they ever think they need something. Sometimes it's all the other supporting documents that are important even with a contract dispute, just to show that one particular interpretation of it is right or wrong, or that the work was done as specified in the contract. You'd think after that experience, they'd have learned to start archiving more than just contracts.

To this day, they still only keep the contract itself. They just don't get it. It would cost so little for them to allow me to upload the associated research, studies, proposals, explanations, correspondence,etc... I have all of this stuff, why not keep it? I recently won against a client's claim that he did not get what we discussed. I was out two months on disability, so he lied and told someone else that he was mislead. I got back to work and pulled out my file, and there was the correspondence where I told him not to do what he did, but he did it anyway, and IT DIDN'T WORK. While I was gone, he tried to say I was the one that told him to do it. MUWAHAHA. Caught!

 

[Moonbear]

The only reason a company might choose not to keep documents as a matter of company policy is if they have far more that would be evidence they are doing something wrong than that would help prove they are doing right. Can't destroy those after the lawyers ask for them, but can make it a policy to just never save anything and hope they disappear. Makes you really think when a big company won't protect themselves by saving documents.