Extract from John Tredennick’s article “Why IT Should Care About Legal Holds”
When it’s time to preserve company data and communications relating to pending legal matters, the IT and legal groups have to work together.
When litigation looms, a corporation has a duty to identify and preserve relevant documents and other data that may be important to the legal matter. The goal is to avoid the intentional or inadvertent destruction of relevant evidence that might be used at trial. This process is called a “legal hold.”
While a legal hold sounds like it falls squarely into the realm of the legal department, lawyers rely heavily on IT to execute many of the activities associated with a legal hold. This puts a burden on IT and can put legal, IT or the organization at risk if legal obligations aren’t met.
