PROTECTION: practices must have policies in place to guard against Net abuse

Staff use of e-mail puts law firms at risk from defamation and harassment claims, theft by employees and exposure during litigation, solicitors heard this week.

Matthew Cowan, a partner at City firm Clyde & Co, told delegates at the 2004 Legal IT show in London that solicitors should have policies in place to protect against the abuse of e-mail and the Internet by staff.

He said: 'In most contracts, there will be a force majeure clause protecting a party if it is unable to fulfil the contract due to circumstances beyond its control.

But if you can't fulfil the contract because of a virus which is introduced by an employee of the firm, for example through their use of the Internet, and you did not have a policy and guidelines on Internet and e-mail use - then you can kiss goodbye to your force majeure clause.'

Mr Cowan said he had encountered two recent cases where employees won claims for unfair dismissal after being sacked for downloading pornography - because the employers did not have clear policies in place.

E-mails and electronic evidence can come back to haunt a company during litigation, he said, making it essential to know what e-mails exist on employees' laptops and home computers.

Mr Cowan said: 'One of the reasons why the Hutton inquiry was able to uncover so much about the amendments which had been made to documents, was because of the metadata under the Word documents, which showed who had been editing it and when.

Apparently, Downing Street is now only releasing documents in pdf format, which does not have any metadata issues.'

Electronic files also mean greater risk of data theft by staff.

Mr Cowan said: 'When lawyers move firms, they are not supposed to take the precedents with them.

Years ago, it would be really obvious if they were doing this because they would be stood by the photocopier late at night.

Now all they have to do is put it on a disc.'

Meanwhile, delegates were told that the exponential growth in e-mail use has made e-mail archiving essential.

Nigel Shaw, chairman of Internet management company Thinking Virtual, said: 'The average e-mail message has increased in size by 92% per year, and the number of e-mails is increasing by 29% year on year.

Meanwhile, mailbox sizes are growing by around 48% year on year.'

Mr Shaw said the amount of storage available is reducing in relative terms, as people are sending and storing e-mails with larger and larger attachments.

Mr Shaw recommended e-mail archiving rather than back-up procedures, because the more advanced search facility makes documents more easily accessible.

Making staff aware that all e-mails will be archived is also likely to reduce e-mail abuse by employees, he said.

He added: 'There is a perception that e-mail is cheap - but in fact it can be expensive to manage.'

Rachel Rothwell