6 Things You Can’t Ignore When Implementing a Legal Hold

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6 Things You Cant Ignore When Implementing a
Legal Hold

• Contoural Inc

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• A legal hold is an important layer of protection
  under which an organization preserves every
  potentially relevant piece of information for a
  pending or anticipated litigation. Legal holds
  are not the active part of courtroom proceedings.
  However, they provide protective layer to an
  organization from serious court sanctions.
• Implementing a legal hold is extremely important
  because a failure to issue a legal hold led to
  ruling of gross negligence and even
  spoliation. Therefore, you must know how and
  when to implement legal hold. This article
  entails 6 things you must consider while
  implementing a legal hold.

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• Not all employees exhibit the same level of
  responsibility towards legal matters such as
  preserving electronically stored information.
  However your organization will be held
  responsible for their actions in case of any
  negligence. Therefore, you need make sure that
  they acknowledge the legal significance of hold.
  You might have to follow it up yourself but this
  is something you need to do before implementing
  Legal Hold Discovery Programs.
• With the help of a legal hold software, you can
  save yourself from the hassle of following up
  because a software will automate the process.
  Some of these applications are efficient and
  smart as they come with an acknowledge option
  within the hold email, which confirms the
  acknowledgement once a custodian clicks it. In
  case, the custodians do not respond, the software
  will send out periodic reminders.

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Legal Language is difficult to comprehend

• Legal language is technical, and difficult to
  understand. In order to ensure the successful
  transmission of message, it is important that you
  use simple and basic language for giving
  instructions. Your employees can understand the
  urgency and importance of hold if they know it in
  a laymans language.
• Guide them how they can comply with legal hold
  and preservation requirements in a simple,
  concise, and basic language. A helpful tip in
  this regard is to give instructions as if you are
  communicating with a 5th grader.

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Legal Holds Are Discoverable

• While drafting a legal hold, do not include
  anything that gives information about your legal
  strategy. It might look like an obvious thing but
  it is often overlooked. A hold letter is normally
  protected under attorney-client privilege
  however in few cases when a party fails to keep
  or preserve evidence, judges have allowed the
  discovery of hold letters. Keeping the worst case
  scenario in mind, do not include anything which
  shows your legal strategy in litigation.
• Legal holds should contain only limited
  information, so that only a few custodian know
  how to comply effectively.

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Accountability Limits

• Courts have ruled that in order to preserve
  Electronically Stored Information (ESI),
  companies need to make reasonable efforts only
  when litigation is reasonably foreseeable.
• Although it can be given a twist and turn based
  on subjective conditions, however, it is better
  to be prepared for the worst case scenario. With
  a legal hold preparedness, you can fight in court
  if anything goes wrong. With saved ESI,
  spoliation sanctions can be avoided by proving
  that you took reasonable steps to preserve ESI.
  By establishing that information was restored or
  replaced from another source, it can be proved
  that a legal hold was issued.

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Legal Hold Evolves

• After setting your legal hold, you have to keep
  track of the hold so as to conform to e-discovery
  requests. The scope of legal hold is not limited
  it takes shape as per the evolution of overall
  case. Therefore, you need to update it and
  consult it even for a number of years.

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Termination of Hold

• Once litigation has been resolved, or there is no
  litigation in anticipation, you do not need legal
  hold. A hold can also be terminated if the ESI is
  no longer relevant to your legal proceedings. In
  such case you might want to end the hold and get
  rid of the burden it imposes on your business.
  After ending a legal hold your business can go
  back to normal.
• There must be defined protocols and release
  procedures so that the data could be cross
  checked in case of information preservation
  obligations.

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Conclusion

• Looking at the importance of legal holds, dont
  hesitate to reach out to our team at Contoural.
  We are here to assist you through the whole
  procedure of legal holds and Discovery Programs.

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THANK YOU