2012 January

Would you like to start saving for your retirement, but never got around to establishing an RRSP? Here are some things that you can do to get started faster.

When it comes to saving for retirement, the majority of Canadians know that this is an important decision for their financial future. However, a growing amount of people don’t have any retirement savings at all. Getting started with an RRSP doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t require huge amount of money either. Here is how it can be done:

Plan your budget accordingly. The first step towards saving money for anything, retirement or otherwise, would be to create a budget. Calculate the amount that you can afford to save each month. This makes it more likely that you will make regular contributions to your RRSP, rather than making it a low priority and only contributing if you have money left over.

Set up an RRSP. You can consult a financial advisor from a reputable firm such as Raymond James financial to help you get started with an RRSP. An advisor can help you understand how RRSP’s work and how much you can contribute each year, up to your RRSP limit. Contributing to an RRSP while respecting that limit can have some tax benefits for you, as contributions made up to the limit amount are tax deductible.

Set up automatic contributions to your RRSP. Many financial institutions will allow you to make automatic transfers from your checking account over to another account, such as your RRSP. The amount that you transfer each month can be relatively low, such as $100 per month, however, it will add up in the end of the year.

Review available investment options. There is a number of investment vehicles which are eligible for an RRSP. Examples of these products include bankers acceptances, mutual funds, guaranteed investment certificates, stocks and more. By doing some research on various kinds of investments that you can use, you will increase your knowledge of investing in general and would be better prepared to choose the options that are right for you. Of course, speaking to a financial advisor about the investment choices that would work best in your situation remains one of the best ways of setting up a complete investment strategy for your retirement, as you will benefit from professional advice.

Most experts would agree that the earlier you start saving for your retirement, the better it is. Even if at the moment you don’t have much capital available at your disposal, there are still investment products that are RRSP eligible that you can use to save your money. Another benefit from this is that you will establish good investment habits if you plan your retirement savings and put down money towards your RRSP on a regular basis.

The aim of this article is to point out the key features of e-Discovery and its potential importance to the future of collecting evidence to aid in the investigation of cases.

E-discovery refers to the discovery in civil litigation which deals with the exchange of information in electronic format, with a digital forensics analysis performed to extract evidence. Data is identified as relevant by attorneys and placed on legal hold. Evidence is then extracted and analysed using digital forensic procedures, and is usually converted into PDF or TIFF form for official use inside the court.

It can still be carried out offline on a particular computer or it can be done in a network. A court ordered or government sanctioned hacking for the purpose of obtaining critical evidence is also regarded as a form electronic discovery.

Such is the nature of digital data that makes it extremely well suited to investigation; can be electronically searched with ease in comparison to that of paper documents which has to be physically scrutinized carefully. Besides that, it is also difficult to completely destroy the data, especially if it manages to successfully filtrate into a network; data appears on multiple hard drives plus deleted digital data files can still be retrieved.

Data of all types can serve as concrete evidence and can include the following: text, images, databases, spread sheets, audio files and computer programs. Even malware such as viruses and spyware can be used as materials to be investigated. E-mails can also be a valuable source of evidence in civil or criminal litigation because people are often less careful in these forms of communication than in hard copy ones such as letters and written memos.

Computer forensics is a specialized form of document review whereby investigation is carried out on the contents of a specific computer. Only the hard drive is extracted and copied digitally, after which the computer is sent to be locked up in evidence. As such, all investigation is conducted solely on the digital copy of the hard drive with the original one intact and being locked up so that no one will be able to interfere with the investigation process or alter the results.

E-discovery is widely regarded today as an evolving but yet controversial field that transcends far beyond mere technology, giving rise to multiple complicated socio-political issues that are yet to be resolved nonetheless. However, in spite of all this, the future of e-discovery in civil litigation remains as bright as ever, as it serves to simplify the process of gathering evidence and also at the same time, offering more options in retrieving key evidences that could potentially alter the course of the investigation.