Story · Legal · Compliance
Twenty years of files, no retention policy, and a bill nobody had added up
A firm that had operated for nearly twenty years without a data retention or archiving policy. Nothing had ever been deleted, because nobody could say with confidence what was safe to delete. So everything stayed, and everything kept being backed up, protected and paid for.
The situation
Storage is cheap right up until it is not. Data in a protected environment is backed up, replicated offsite, scanned, indexed and covered by the controls an insurer asks about. Every one of those costs something, and they all scale with volume.
For a law firm the problem is sharper than for most businesses, because deletion is not purely a technical decision. Legal and ethical obligations govern some of it. Individual client compliance policies govern more. The cyber liability insurer has opinions too. Several of these rules contradict each other about the same file.
So the firm did the rational thing in the absence of a policy, which is to keep everything forever, and absorb a cost nobody had ever calculated.
What we did
This was not a project with an end date. It ran over several years, alongside everything else, which is what this kind of work actually looks like.
We built systems to identify what could be eliminated, what should be archived out of the live environment, and what had to stay where it was and be documented as such. Then we ran regular reports against them, so the picture stayed current instead of going stale the week after it was produced.
We advised on the technical side throughout: what storage limits actually meant, how volume affected disaster recovery times, and what a restore of the whole thing would really involve. Then we reconciled all of it against the firm's legal and ethical obligations, its individual clients' compliance requirements, and its cyber liability policy.
Custom reports tracked the reduction as it happened, so the progress was visible rather than asserted. And we ran a cost analysis that put a number on what it costs to leave large amounts of data sitting in a protected environment.
"The cost analysis is what moved it. A compliance chore is easy to defer. A bill you are already paying is not."
How the account manager puts itWhat changed
ResolvedThe firm has a retention position it can explain to a client, an insurer or a court, and reporting that shows it is being followed. The live environment holds what needs to be live. The archive holds what needs to be kept. Recovery times came down because there is less to recover.
The cost analysis turned out to be the useful artefact. It reframed the whole project from housekeeping into something with a return, which is how it kept getting funded across several years.
Order the internet circuit the week the lease is signed. Carriers take six to twelve weeks. Nothing else on a move fails as often.
The relocation checklist Did you knowA backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. Ask for the date of the last tested restore.
What to actually testQuestions people ask about this
Is this not just deleting old files?
No. The deciding is the work, and it is mostly a legal and ethical question with a technical component. We build the reporting and the process; the firm makes the calls about its own obligations.
What does old data actually cost?
More than most owners expect, because it is not just disk. It is backup, offsite replication, the time a full recovery takes, and the controls your insurer requires across all of it.
Does our cyber insurance care about this?
Increasingly, yes. Questionnaires now ask what you hold, where, and for how long. A firm that can answer is in a better position at renewal.
"Great job."
Leigh, Lake Geneva hotelMore from the survey wall- A technician who knows your setup takes every request. Not a dispatcher, not a queue.
- Every closed ticket is surveyed and a partner reads every response.
- 99.5% of surveys come back positive.
- Family-owned since 2005. 21 years in the same corner of Wisconsin, not going anywhere.
"Thanks for the hard work. I was kept informed with regular updates until the concern was resolved."
Jeff, insurance brokerageNever deleted anything?
Most businesses have not. We will show you what it is costing before anyone suggests changing it.
Talk to a partnerTalk to a partner, not a sales script.
Tell us what is going on. A partner will call you back the same business day, look at what you have, and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit. No pricing pressure, no pitch deck.