Connecticut Employment Law Blog : Connecticut Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Daniel Schwartz : Stamford, Hartford New Haven, CT

UPDATED 12/3/08

During this decade, electronic discovery has moved from the fringes into the mainstream when litigating employment law claims. 

What does this mean? In many cases, employers must now run keyword searches and other types of searches on their computer systems to find information that might be relevant to the lawsuit at issue.

But what search terms do lawyers and other e-discovery practioners really look for?  An article in CIO.com, suggests a top 10 list according to an e-discovery provider.

Among the key search terms?

• "Delete this email immediately."
• "I really shouldn't put this in writing."
• "I don't want to discuss this in e-mail. Please give me a call."
• "Don't ask. You don't want to know."

In employment cases, there are obviously other terms or items that will likely be looked for depending on the type of case.  If it's a sexual harassment case that involves pornography, for example, you can be sure that various searches will be run on porn-related search terms.  (And a Newsweek article this week suggests that the search for porn will be pretty successful given the numbers of people viewing it at work...)

For employers, there are easy and no-so-easy solutions to these issues. Among the easier solutions, put up some basic internet filters so that porn sites cannot be accessed.  Among the harder solutions, come up with document retention policies that clean up e-mail on a regular basis and that following company policies is obviously key.

And remind people of a simple e-mail rule -- don't put something in an e-mail that you wouldn't want your mother to see on the front page of the New York Times six months later.

UPDATE: A keen reader highlighted for me the original source of some of the content I had attributed to a different blog in my original post.  I have updated the post to cite to this article as the proper source of the information rather than the blog, to give full credit to the original author.  

(H/T Overlawyered)

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With the cable news shows tracking the stock market like the latest sports scores ("it's down...no it's really down!), there is little doubt that the public and companies are all feeling some anxiety. 

So, I decided to take a look at some of the blog statistics to see if I could discern any patterns.  While some search terms over the last 72 hours seem obvious (such as "Connecticut Employment Law"), there were other search terms that stood out.

Among them are several dozen for what I would term "layoff-related" terms like OWBPA and WARN.  More troubling though were searches for "ct layoff law" or "60 day RIF law connecticut". 

Some of the search terms were even done by individuals with IP addresses at some notable Connecticut companies. Is this a prediction of things to come? Or is it just nervous employees researching what the rules are in case things turn south?

Either way, to me it shows a workplace on edge. 

In employment law, we often talk about how human resources can play an important role in taking the pulse of the workplace and providing communications to address questions that people might have.

Why? Because anger and lawsuits sometimes develop from employees who feel mistreated or who were not expecting the adverse action.  Telling employees the whole truth -- even when the future is up in the air -- is an important part of any communication plan. 

A long time ago I heard an employee -- when complaining about her employer -- say that her employer treated her "like a kid".  Had the employer managed the employee a little more closely, the lawsuit may have been averted.

Being forthright with employees about the prospects about the future business and staffing levels -- hopefully, that's not a novel concept for your business.

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