AXS-One can manage both e-mail and IM, and it captures a copy of each message that is sent or received. To give users one-click access to old messages, it creates message "stubs" in their e-mail directories, according to AXS-One.

Coppolo said the tools are working well enough that he hopes to eventually train KeyBank's legal team to use AXS-One, in order to free up his IT staffers for other tasks.

The increased need for companies to be able to produce electronic evidence is "a pretty serious issue," said Michael Osterman, an analyst at Osterman Research Inc. in Black Diamond, Wash.

And many companies don't appear to be ready to comply with the new e-discovery rules. For example, in a survey conducted by Computerworld last fall, 32 percent of the 170 IT managers and staffers who responded said their companies weren't at all prepared to meet the new requirements. Only 5 percent said their companies were completely prepared.

Resorting to ad hoc help instead of installing software can be expensive, Osterman said. He estimated that hiring an outside forensics firm to help comply with e-discovery requests costs about $35,000 per tape.