In the February 4, 1735, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Benjamin Franklin wrote in an anonymous letter:
In the first Place, as an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, I would advise ’em to take care how they suffer living Coals in a full Shovel, to be carried out of one Room into another, or up or down Stairs, unless in a Warmingpan shut; for Scraps of Fire may fall into Chinks and make no Appearance until Midnight; when your Stairs being in Flames, you may be forced, (as I once was) to leap out of your Windows, and hazard your Necks to avoid being oven-roasted.
This admonition is the origin of the still-repeated proverb “an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure,” and though he was writing of fire safety and the consequences of laxity in that area, he might as well have been writing about e-discovery project planning and its risks. As any experienced e-discovery practitioner will confirm, being forced to risk your neck jumping out the window of a burning house, because of something tiny you missed while hurrying around, can be a pretty good analogy for the e-discovery experience.
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