subject: Implications Of An Ediscovery Legal Hold Module [print this page] In todays highly advanced electronic world where gradually most organizations are going paperless legal holds continue to gain prominence. Simply put, a legal hold can be best defined as the suspension of an enterprises document retention and destruction policies for documents that might be important to a lawsuit that has been already filed or for any litigation purpose that is anticipated. The main objective of a legal hold is to make sure that important data is not compromised and that adequate advice is given to the employees for requirements for document preservation. Hence, there is a clear requirement for enterprises and individuals to set up and adhere to a systematized legal hold procedure so that legal pitfalls relating to evidence destruction can be avoided.
Though most individuals associated in the legal field are familiar with the concept of legal hold, there are many who are not aware as to when the obligation is triggered, what is needed to be preserved and who needs to be involved. It has been observed, that there were numerous cases that addressed legal holds that helped to delineate some of the best practices for issuing a legal hold.
Today the top ediscovery solution providers have introduced eDiscovery legal hold modules that enable law firms, corporations and government agencies to manage and automate their legal hold procedures. The module or solution helps to simplify legal hold management by ensuring a repeatable workflow that helps legal teams to cater to the duty to preserve from anticipation to litigation completion. The end users have a seamless application that not only monitors hold notices but also quickly recognizes and collects data on demand. Therefore, as a result advanced legal hold modules helps in reducing the risk of sanctions while offering high level responsibility of defensibility all through the e-discovery life cycle. The main features of the module are:
Hold Notices
Reminders
Escalations
Notice Library
Mail-Merge
Automated Tracking and Reporting
Custodian Portal
Custodian Survey
Survey Response Report
Active Directory Integration
Custodian Audit Report
Distributed, Access-based Architecture
This apart, innovative legal hold solutions results in seamless integration with downstream e-discovery procedures. This is done by delivering a product for the overall e discovery life cycle. Simultaneously, the users can issue legal holds, and then process, collate, review and analyze case data within the same application, making sure a justifiable e-discovery process.
