An Important eDiscovery Lesson From Jon Gruden

You may have heard that Jon Gruden is no longer the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders as of last night. You may have even heard that this is a result of some controversial emails he sent in 2011 while he was actually working for ESPN, not an NFL team.

But you may be wondering why these emails are suddenly coming to light?

Oh actually, it’s because the guy he sent them to, worked for the Washington Football Club, which just so happens to be caught up in an investigation wholly unrelated to Jon Gruden.

The emails came to light during the NFL’s investigation into workplace misconduct with Washington, as “the league was informed of the existence of emails that raised issues beyond the scope of that investigation,” according to NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy. Senior league executives reviewed the content of more than 650,000 emails

See Jon, even when the investigation has nothing to do with you, those comments you made in the email exist, and the guy you sent them to didn’t, or couldn’t, delete them. So even though they may have flown under the radar for all these years, all it took was one investigation or lawsuit to involve the other people on the email chain, and everything you said is now out there.

You would think people would stop having to relearn this lesson every few years, but alas here we are.

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