No one brought this up and I can’t understand why? Explain to me why no asked if she had personal backups? No sane person in any position of authority doesn’t backup to portable drive or usb device. There is no way any reasonable person would not backup other files or trust 2 years of work product to an aging hard drive.
Not one person has asked if she or an IT person had made back ups to other devices and I can’t fathom why? She should have lost not just emails, but spreadsheets, word docs, presentations, etc.. etc.. I call bull on no other backups.
This is just a guess on part. Since they were dealing with confidential tax information, they probably aren't allowed to backup to local devices. Most of the work would likely have done on a secure file or database server. Generally speaking you don't want rank and file doing their own backups anyway..
When I was working we knew the e-mails were on the server, but every couple of months we would make a CD of the .pst for ourselves. I don't know how many times I was able to cover my ass or reconstruct the thought process that went into a decision. Working spreadsheets and other documents went to other servers and were often caught in the e-mails themselves. It was also my understanding backups of the server were a daily occurrence. Companies can't afford to have months or years of work go down the tube. It would be very costly. I think it's time for the IRS to ask the NSA to help save money by recreating their work product.