What is a litigation hold (legal hold, preservation order or hold order)? (2024)

FAQs

What is a litigation hold (legal hold, preservation order or hold order)? ›

A legal hold (also known as a litigation hold) is a notification sent from an organization's legal team to employees instructing them not to delete electronically stored information (ESI) or discard paper documents that may be relevant to a new or imminent legal case.

A legal hold, also known as a litigation hold, is the process by which organizations preserve potentially relevant information when litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated. By issuing a legal hold, organizations notify custodians about their duty not to delete ESI or physical documents relevant to a case.

Sometimes referred to as a "preservation order," a litigation hold suspends normal record retention periods and requires that records be maintained and not tampered with from that point forward until the hold is lifted.

A preservation hold ensures that original copies, prior to any edits or deletions, of emails and files are preserved in the Google Vault or a Microsoft 365 Preservation Library.

If you get one of these, the best response is to first contact your business attorney. The notice should be as specific as is reasonably possible. The purpose is to put a business on notice that the data identified in the letter might be needed in a dispute. Beware that ignoring the notice can be problematic.

A preservation letter may also be called a preservation order, a litigation hold, or a hold order. This is a letter instructing the recipient not to destroy, alter, or delete any documents helpful to the sender. This letter is critical in today's world where most documents are electronically stored.

Sometimes called a legal hold, a litigation hold is a notice that requires an organization or individual to properly preserve electronically stored information (ESI) and documents that may be relevant to anticipated or pending litigation.

Here's what happens when you create a Litigation hold. Items that are permanently deleted by the user are retained in the Recoverable Items folder in the user's mailbox for the duration of the hold. Items that are purged from the Recoverable Items folder by the user are retained for the duration of the hold.

Each legal expedition is unique, and the triggers for a legal hold may vary depending on the circ*mstances at hand. Whether it is the reasonable anticipation of litigation, notice of claims, regulatory investigations, or compliance obligations, pay heed to these signals, and set sail on the path of preservation.

By imposing a legal hold, also known as a litigation hold or preservation obligation, organizations ensure that potentially important data is retained and not altered or deleted.

What is a legal hold preservation of evidence? ›

A legal hold is a notice issued to all affected personnel (custodians) communicating their legal obligation to preserve potentially relevant evidence. This may be in the form of physical or electronically stored information.

You can also check what retention stage currently an item is residing in, by navigating through the site -> site contents -> Preservation Hold Library -> Select an item -> More options -> Compliance details.

To delete a preservation hold setting, delete all projects using the setting first. To learn how to delete projects, see Deleting a project. Once the projects have been deleted, navigate to the Preservation Hold Setting and click the Delete button. This action deletes the preservation hold setting from Legal Hold.

A litigation hold letter during a divorce will likely come directly after the initial filing of the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage in California. If your spouse hired an attorney, the attorney will issue this letter almost immediately.

Best practices for Office 365 litigation hold

An admin can set Litigation Holds on mailboxes as soon as an employee is hired and keep them enacted for a set amount of time desired by the organization. Office365 enables Litigation Holds of up to one year (365 days).

A litigation hold is a written directive advising custodians of certain documents and electronically-stored information (“ESI”) to preserve potentially relevant evidence in anticipation of future litigation.

After the eDiscovery legal hold has been issued, all the custodians need to send an acknowledgment of the same. You must keep receipts of these acknowledgments that will help prove that the custodians had an understanding of what their obligations were.

Also known as a legal hold, document hold, hold order, or preservation order.