News

Christopher Ballod Quoted in Corporate Counsel Article on Alternative Communications Platforms

Philadelphia, Pa. (July 7, 2020) – Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Partner Christopher E. Ballod was recently quoted by Corporate Counsel (part of Law.com) in an article titled “Are Companies and Legal Departments Ready for Life Post-Email?” The article discusses the potential implications of using communications channels outside of traditional email systems and whether corporate legal departments and their organizations are prepared for such a shift.

As the article notes, Slack Technologies Inc. recently introduced a new tool, Slack Connect, a messaging system that allows several entities to work together across the same channel. The article explains that, due to the large number of employees working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have already established the necessary privacy and security protocols related to the use of this type of external communications platform.

In addition, the article describes how many organizations and their corporate legal departments already use internal collaboration platforms, which afford the companies certain benefits. Mr. Ballod told Corporate Counsel that email systems often serve as repositories, where messages are unnecessarily retained forever. According to Mr. Ballod, these emails may ultimately become a liability to organizations.

“I’ve seen that in a litigation context for years now, countless times where a simple internal email is taken out of context and framed as a smoking gun when in fact it’s just a quick little communication trying to ask somebody a question who has full context and knows exactly what they are asking,” Mr. Ballod explained.

Mr. Ballod, CIPP/US, CIPP/E, is a vice chair of Lewis Brisbois’ Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice. He regularly counsels clients on the prevention of data breach incidents, as well as during the response and notification process after an incident occurs. He is also a frequent contributor to Lewis Brisbois’ Digital Insights blog.

You can read the full article on Corporate Counsel (subscription may be required).

Related Attorneys