Extract from Meg McLaughlin’s article “Litigation Hold Process: A Step by Step Guide to Creating Defensible Legal Holds”
No matter where your team is at with their legal process, there are always opportunities to improve upon your processes. While it can sound daunting, taking the time to take stock of what’s working, what needs improvement, and what needs a full HGTV-style renovation are critical steps to staying on top of any legal matters your company might be facing. With that in mind, we’ve put together a step by step guide for maintaining a defensible litigation hold process.
Make Sure You Know Exactly What a Litigation Hold Is
A litigation hold, also known as a legal hold, is a routine-yet-critical function of any corporate legal team. After all, legal holds are the first step of traditional ediscovery and ensure that evidence is preserved for downstream processes such as collection, processing, analysis, and review. So, it makes sense to check in on your legal hold process and systems from time to time to ensure that everything is as streamlined as possible, and, of course, completely defensible.
A litigation hold is the process by which an organization advises personnel when information must be preserved for potential litigation matters or investigations. The legal hold process ensures that information that could be relevant to a dispute is protected until it can be collected for review or until the matter is resolved.
