By Lee Yen Nee

INFORMATION overload is one factor being blamed for difficulties faced by companies' in-house lawyers in quickly locating comprehensive data needed for legal purposes.

The data might be needed if the firm is involved in a lawsuit or is being probed by regulators.

A KPMG survey, in which in-house lawyers from 215 companies worldwide were interviewed, has found that the lawyers often have trouble getting the data.

The results, released yesterday, show that 50 per cent of respondents are worried about the ability of their legal departments to find data. Almost 40 per cent said that information is difficult to retrieve when the need arises.

Said head of forensics at KPMG Bob Yap: 'Companies have to deal with a mind-bogglingly large amount of data being generated every day, which not only has to be stored but also made searchable and retrievable in the future.'

'When a regulatory investigation or litigation arises, it is critical that companies can find and organise the right data very quickly,' he added.

These concerns could be due to the lack of communication between a company's legal and IT departments, which is another key finding of the survey.

More than 20 per cent of respondents said they were not consulted by their IT departments about changes in the data storage system. About 25 per cent said they were rarely or never consulted when the company adopts new data storage technology.

Mr Yap said it has always been a major challenge to manage large volumes of data, especially for firms operating across borders.

'Electronic data is at the core of any modern business. When properly managed, it can help a business to save money by allowing it to respond more effectively to a regulatory investigation or stay in control of external legal time and fees in litigation.

'Lawyers, like other professionals, cannot ignore it,' he added.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.