Sign In
    Wisconsin Lawyer
    March 04, 2010

    Dumpster Disasters: Toss That Old PC Ethically 

    In a regular and predictable ritual, you need to replace your PCs, laptops, and network fileservers. Not that they necessarily wear out, but they may no longer be up to the task of running contemporary software. Using a five-year-old PC is like driving a car with 800,000 miles – it can die in a flash, crippling your practice.

    Dumpster Disasters: Toss That Old PC Ethically  

    by Ross L. Kodner

    In a regular and predictable ritual, you need to replace your PCs, laptops, and network fileservers. Not that they necessarily wear out, but they may no longer be up to the task of running contemporary software. Using a five-year-old PC is like driving a car with 800,000 miles – it can die in a flash, crippling your practice.

    What happens to elderly PC systems relegated to the dustbin of techno-history? Toss them in the Dumpster®? There are many avenues instead for recycling old computers to ensure they don’t harm our environment. There also are philanthropic entities you can use to donate old computer equipment to worthy organizations. But be careful when disposing of, recycling, or donating your old PC – your ecological or kind gesture could cost you your law license.

    Why? Because old computers are packed with confidential client information and sensitive firm information. Further, the computers undoubtedly have software licensed to your firm for which you have specific obligations under end-user license agreements. Giving away control of and access to these computers can lead to malpractice claims and ethical violations at worst and serious embarrassment at best. You could even face potential HIPAA violation claims (for disclosing employee or client healthcare information). So what should you do?

    Ross Kodner

    Ross Kodner is founder of MicroLaw Inc., Milwaukee, a national legal technology and law practice management consultancy, helping lawyers to best integrate technology into the workflow of their practices. Reach him at rkodner@microlaw.com, www.microlaw.com, and (414) 540-9433.

    Courtney G. Kennaday, practice management advisor for the South Carolina Bar Association, coauthored an in-depth version of this article that appeared in the March 2005 Wisconsin Lawyer

    You need a D.U.M.P. – a Disposal unMalpractice Plan! The key to a D.U.M.P. is developing a process to ensure, to the greatest extent reasonably practicable, that you remove confidential client information and all licensed software. This means using a process to effectively remove information, rendering the information as unrecoverable as possible. It may not be possible to delete information so that no one could ever recover it (except perhaps by vaporizing the computer in a cataclysmic Star-Trekkian matter/anti-matter implosion). If someone wants to spend enough money and time, he or she could probably find a way to recover at least some of your data. The standard to meet is one of reasonableness, not perfection. What steps must a lawyer take to ensure the reasonably effective removal of this information?

    What doesn’t work.

    1. Deleting files using Windows Explorer or the Windows My Computer functions doesn’t remove the files. It merely removes the “directory listing,” thus making it impossible for Windows or the Mac OS to “see” the file. Think of it as removing the address numbers from your house. The house is still there, but it may be tougher to find.
    2. Deleting files and emptying the Windows or Mac Recycle Bin or Trash. The files are still recoverable.
    3. Incinerating the hard drive. The data recovery experts at companies such as Kroll Ontrack (www.kroll-ontrack.com) or Drivesavers (www.drivesavers.com) still can recover most, if not all, of the information from utterly scorched hard drives.
    4. Throwing your computers off a 40-story building. Entertaining, but ineffective.

    What does work.

    Using electronic file-shredding software. These systems delete files in ways that you cannot accomplish using Windows alone. They typically will run a routine that deletes the files, but then overwrites the areas of the hard drive with repeated patterns of random characters. The current favorite product in this category is called Darik’s Boot & Nuke, also known as DBAN. It’s free from www.dban.org.

    Be sure also to understand all the places where data may be located. These include, but may not be limited to:

    • hard drives in PCs;
    • old hard drives sitting on your shelves that may have failed and were removed but still have recoverable information;
    • ancient floppy disks of all sizes (don’t forget those in storage);
    • ZIP disks and other removable data cartridges;
    • backup tapes;
    • flash drives; and
    • iPods and other personal music players.

    The bottom line is simple. PC in the Dumpster® = potential malpractice claims, ethical violations, embarrassment. Develop a D.U.M.P. for your firm or law department, then make it official policy and use it!


Join the conversation! Log in to comment.

News & Pubs Search

-
Format: MM/DD/YYYY