A
quality or attitude indicative of the desire to document one's lack of culpability for foreseeable negative outcomes.
Derived from the acronym CYA, which stands for "Cover Your Ass" --
common parlance in the
American workplace, used when warning co-workers to protect themselves with adequate, blame-deflecting documentation.
Joe is thankful to the Legal department for refining his skills at inserting
stealth qualifiers (such as: "can," "
may" and "helps to ... ") to enhance the CYA-ishness of his written materials.