Old rules, new rules, classic evergreen rules.

• Position: IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editors

Both the U.S. records and information management (RIM) and legal communities are abuzz these days about the 2006 revision to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). The FRCP is an influential document for all U.S. civil procedures; it guides civil litigation in U.S. federal courts and is commonly adopted in state and other courts.

The FRCP revision that has provoked the attention of the RIM and legal communities is the addition that was made to address electronic discovery, in particular to guide parties in producing electronically stored information (ESI). The revised rules make it clear that organizations must hold from destruction all ESI relevant to pending or actual litigation. However, as John Isaza's feature on e-discovery describes, managers are struggling to understand the scope of the information to put on litigation hold.

A news item in this issue (page 19) reveals that the majority of organizations remain unprepared to meet the new FRCP requirements.

A more-recent, less-heralded change to the FRCP occurred in December 2007, when the FRCP rules were completely rewritten to make them easier to understand. Spearheaded by law professor Bryan A. Garner, who authored Garners Modern American Usage, the FRCP rewrite updates the formal, bewhiskered "legalese" of the original language.

Clear, precise language is paramount for any document to hold its ground and stand the test of time. Just coincidentally, the single most influential document in the history of democracy--the Magna Carta--also happens to be in the news these days (see item on page 8). A 710-year-old copy of the Magna Carta, the last remaining copy in the United States and the last in private hands, recently sold for $21.3 million at a Sotheby's auction. Washington, D.C., businessman and former advisor to President Jimmy Carter, David Rubenstein, purchased the 1297 document and said he plans to keep it in the United States, on display at the U.S. National Archives, where it has been since 1988.

Latin for "great charter," the Magna Carta, drafted by King John at Runnymede, England, in 1215 has come...