By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Where do old legal records go to die – or to be securely stored, away from prying eyes and preventing major security breaches or lawsuits?
Corrigan Record Storage to the rescue. This full-service record center – based in Novi with locations throughout Michigan, northern Ohio, Chicago and upstate New York – handles storage for businesses in a variety of industries through the full lifecycle of a storage box, from inventory and retention schedules through to shredding of dated files to prevent data loss.
The company, boasting more than a million cubic feet of storage space, also maintains a media vault, scanning services and shredding.
“Our vault serves as the offsite storage facility for digital files, and is a critical disaster recovery measure for many of our clients,” says General Manager Chris Rauch, a Western Michigan University grad who started his career at Corrigan in 1991. “We currently have 1.3 million files in our inventory.”
Trusted to safely store, transport and deliver sensitive files, the company offers a highly secure vault with a separate keypad for entry, 24/7 temperature and humidity control, fire suppression systems, and 24-hour surveillance.
“For the legal industry, we most commonly store wills and living trusts in our vault, as there is frequently only one existing copy,” Rauch says. “And files that are closed and don’t require frequent access are a great fit for a record storage facility, and can open up needed space in an office setting.”
As the digital world continues to evolve and grow, so has the company’s scanning service – very valuable to law firms, as it allows easy access to active files. While originals are stored at the facility for safekeeping, they have been scanned into a digital system to enhance accessibility.
Corrigan Record Storage shreds a mind-boggling 140 tons of paper per month – the equivalent weight of 140 elephants.
“Shredding remains a significant portion of our business, as secure termination of confidential files that are no longer required is critical,” Rauch says.
Corrigan Record Storage has been servicing customers in Michigan since 1987, when several customers of Corrigan Moving Systems began looking for storage solutions for hard copy records. Executive Vice President Michael Corrigan recognized a great business opportunity – and Corrigan Record Storage was launched, with racks constructed to store these important documents in a safe, secure environment in the company’s Farmington Hills location.
The need soon arose to protect tape media for computer backups. To ensure safety and longevity, a Halon-protected vault was built for temperature and humidity controlled storage, as well as additional security and fire protection. By 1992, a 30,000-square-foot addition was added; and by 1997 the business had reached more than 300,000 cartons and 100,000 tapes. The following year, Corrigan helped found the National Records Centers (NRC). By 2000, Corrigan built a 106,000-square-foot warehouse in Novi, adding a 3,600-square-foot state-of-the-art FM-200 protected vault to accommodate tape backup needs. In 2009, a 42,000-square-foot addition was built to accommodate nearly 1,000 customers and more than 1,000,000 cartons of storage.
Company employees are screened, drug tested and HIPAA certified, and each employee has signed a confidentiality agreement. In March 2012, the company acquired Certification from
The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) for its plant-based shredding company and maintains the high standards in accordance with the NAID certification – including compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, FACTA, and Sarbanes-Oxley.
For law firms considering using a record storage company, Rauch recommends visiting the facility, to ascertain if it is secure, gated, and has fire control.
Law firms that are shredding in-house should consider a shredding service provider, to save employees time and to ensure data security.
“Frequently, employees handling files through the shredding process don’t have clearance to view the data,” he notes. “Our in-office containers are locked with limited access.”
Rauch recommends law firms find a record storage partner with advanced software that automatically generates review dates and sends reports for file termination approval.
“That way, when files are ready for shredding 10 years down the road, the onus will not be on the law firm to recall that date,” he says.
Beth Ryan, office administrator with Corrigan client Beier Howlett, P.C. in Bloomfield Hills, explains that partnering with a credible record storage company is critical to the law firm’s daily operations.
“It ensures our confidential files are kept secure and our firm remains compliant, while opening up much-needed space in our office and offering the appropriate level of accessibility to the files we need for ongoing legal cases.”
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