In leakville, there should be a hierarchy of sins. That could range from the venial sin of emailing the managing partner's smug memo to Abovethelaw.com to the mortal one of transmitting trade secrets to the competition. But for some organizations, all leaks are equal, as in equally bad.
As a result, some organizations are pulling out all stops - e.g. 33% have dedicated staff to monitor outgoing email -to prevent unauthorized disclosure. In the process, they are probably deep-sixing morale and risking a lawsuit for invasion of privacy. Perhaps a better use of resources is to explore why there are so many leaks and reset the organizational culture, policies, and procedures.
But, that's not likely to happen. In THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, Tresa Baldas reports on a recent study by Proofpoint, a web security firm. It found that among large organizations about 38% monitor and might read email that's going out from employees. There's more. They are also tracking what employees are disclosing on social networks. That has gotten employees fired by 8% of companies.
Companies which are thriving, despite the Black Swan economy, make it a priority to keep employees happy and digitally in the loop. One of them is Best Buy. In the book "Grown Up Digital," Don Tapscott describes that outreach in Chapter 6.
Reflection: If your law firm is the victim of extensive leaking, look inward.
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