2025 Mentoring Program August 12, 2025 E-communication: Risk Avoidance and Legal parameters скачать в хорошем качестве

2025 Mentoring Program August 12, 2025 E-communication: Risk Avoidance and Legal parameters

Watch our guest speaker Dana Richens, partner in the Atlanta-based law firm of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, provide tips for smart, effective electronic communications and how to avoid risks. NOTE: the recording for this meeting did not start until 1/3 of the way thru the presentation. Please READ THE TRANSCRIPT BELOW up until the recording starts. TRANSCRIPT: So the presentation I'm giving today is about tips for safe, smart, and effective electronic communications. When I'm talking about electronic communications, not just email, but also text messages, instant messages, chat platforms and even voicemails. You're creating a kind of a written memorialization of communication. The key point of my presentations today is that an e-communication can be problematic like a bad penny. You may think it's gone, and forgotten. But as we'll see, that's not really going to be the case. And from my perspective the 'E' in e-communication can also stand for EVIDANCE! I'm talking about risk avoidance. You've committed something to writing that could thereafter be used against you, or against your business. Whether it's in some kind of investigation, or a legal dispute. So I'm going to give you an example. something I made up for the hearth industry. Here's an email example to set the stage: Let's say we've got a woman named Sally Shortside. She's the owner of QuickStart who manufactures fire starters for the hearth, patio and barbecue industries. Sally's been in business for about 5 years, etc. So one day Sally gets a call from Happy Hearth, a chain of regional hearth shops inquiring about purchasing 500 special red and green holiday fire starters. Sally's super excited. This is a great way to jump start the summer holiday ordering season. But Sally's not sure she has enough product on hand to fill this order. Fortunately her fulfillment manager, BD Karma, scrambles. He's able to make it work and fill the order. So, Sally sends him an email saying, "Hi BD. Thanks so much for your help with the Happy Hearth order. I know it was a tight deadline, but fortunately we were able to get it out. A nice way to 'quick start' an otherwise challenging 2025." Well, BD gets the email and 5 min later he writes back to Sally saying, "Sally, thanks for your email but I need to give you a heads up. I just realized that I included in Happy Hearth's order some of the old fire starters from the infamous bad fire starter lot of 2024. Maybe Happy Hearth will never notice. Fingers crossed." Well, as bad luck would have it, the hit or miss fire starters of 2024 turn out to be mostly misses, and Happy Hearth's business is harmed. As a result, Happy Hearth sends a demand letter to Sally to quick start asking for damages because the fire starters caused a fire. Then, one day QuickStart receives a demand letter from an attorney. So in the face of all this happening, what becomes of this communication between Sally and BD? Sally starts to think about the ramifications of this email. I mean, after all, it's in writing that clearly confirms that QuickStart knowingly supplied defective fire starters to its customer. So Sally thinks to herself, Well, you know what, it's an internal email from me to BD here at the company. No one's ever going to see it. Here's why Sally is wrong. Let's say this fire starter controversy results in a lawsuit where Happy Hearth sues QuickStart. QuickStart litigation has something that's called 'Discovery', where you get to discover things about the other side. Their documents, their witnesses, etc. And one subset of discovery is called 'e-discovery' (Electronic discovery) where you get to get electronic files from your opposition. Sally's lawyer would call her one day asking for her laptop, access to email accounts, cell phones, tablet, any other devices, your file cabinets, your warehouse, anywhere you might have hard copies or electronic communications to go through them, compile them, and turn them over to the other side. Wow! So that email example is problematic because there's an admission that a defective product was knowingly sold. So Sally thinks, what if I delete that email? Sally is wrong again. It's like the bad penny, it's going to turn up on servers, temporary files, and backup tapes in the cloud. BD is going to have a copy in his computer and email. So, even though Sally may not have kept the email, it's out there and it's going to be found and turned over in discovery. So Sally has another idea, I'll just get with my IT guy and have him go destroy all evidence of this email. But there is something called the "Litigation Hold" which means that when there is reason to believe that there's going to be litigation, there can be no destruction of evidence - you have to hold it. And if you destroy evidence, then there are serious repercussions against you and your case at trial. WATCH FROM HERE... SUBSCRIBE to this YouTube channel for future recordings. Contact Amie Ryan with questions: ryan@nficertified.org