Legal Commentary

Three days of briefings with Twin Cities legal technology teams have increased my perception that compliance is looming large over our industry. Once all of the related issues become clear, I suspect that compliance will make e-discovery look simple.

Tuesday's lead story on the Star Tribune's business page was how Piper Jaffray & Co., a 115-year old Minneapolis-based investment bank, had just agreed to cough up a $700K fine for failing to retain e-mails required by securities laws and regulations; and for failing to inform regulators that they had discovered the problem while investigating an ex-employee, reports Dan Browning.

"You might think [the bank] would have known better," writes Browning. It already paid a $1.65 million fine in 2002 for failing to preserve e-mails.

On a much lighter note, the same issue of the Strib featured a hilarious review by Jon Bream, a frequent contributor to Law Technology News, of the band Nickelback, which he says is veering very close to Spinal Tap. Bream says frontman Chad Kroeger "dropped enough F-bombs to upset your grandmother, made enough pot references to give you the munchies, and babbled on longer than the president's State of the Union."