Eli Lilly Discovers the Value of Information Rights Management

I know the title of this post sounds like a case study, but it isn't. Remember that New York Times story last week about how Eli Lilly was negotiating with the US Department of Justice over a US$1 billion settlement? At first, Lilly thought the Gray Lady had gotten information from the DoJ... but it was one of their own lawyers who mistakenly sent a confidental e-mail thread memo to the NYT's Alex Berenson instead of her fellow attorney, Sanford Brad Berenson. Oooops. Read the whole story here, then consider how much value an information rights management (IRM) system like Windows Rights Management might have provided to that law firm (to say nothing of the poor attorney who made a mistake-- I bet her future career prospects are pretty dim.)

Update: Portfolio got a few of the details wrong, so I've edited the above post. NPR's "On the Media" has an interview with Alex Berenson that provides some more background detail if you're interested.