E-Discovery Strategies Help Companies Avoid Legal Fees

Best-in-Class Companies Save On Average 38% in Legal Discovery Costs


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - January 10, 2008) - Company litigation risks for electronically stored information have increased dramatically as a result of changes in government rules. Ninety-one percent (91%) of Best-in-Class companies avoided fines or a lost legal proceeding because they were able to meet legal discovery requirements, according to a study of 364 companies conducted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS).

"Survey participants with over $1B in revenues reported an average legal discovery cost of $997k. Best-in-Class companies experienced significant cost savings and lowered litigation risks by implementing a comprehensive e-Discovery strategy in their organization," said Ralph A. Rodriguez, Senior Vice President of Technology Research, Aberdeen. "Furthermore, Best-in-Class companies are able to recover archived data, records, and messages in less than one hour and complete legal discovery requests on time an average 94% of the time."

Best-in-Class companies identified two strategies as most successful: 73% of these companies integrated e-Discovery practices with their records and data management processes, while 64% implemented an organization-wide data and records lifecycle management policy.

"With 47% of respondents reporting that the number of regulations complied with increased or stayed the same over the past year, it is critical to organizations to reduce their litigation and regulatory risk by deploying a comprehensive e-Discovery and data, record, and message archiving solution before they are served with a discovery notice," states Rodriguez.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Fortiva and Plasmon. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4195.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
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Contact Information: Media Contact: Ralph Rodriguez Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5339 ralph.rodriguez@aberdeen.com