Posts Tagged ‘legal hold’

Over the years that I have been involved in the archiving and records management industry I’ve presented many times on the topic of data consolidation and in my years of talking with organizations I’ve noticed that not all organizations are aware of where data resides in their environment.  Quite often many will have identified the major information silos however a full understanding of what is where is especially when it comes to regulatory compliance and legal demands is critical.

In the case of Arteria Prop. Pty Ltd. v. Universal Funding V.T.O., Inc., 2008 WL 4513696 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2008) the court made an interesting statement in reference to how website content should be treated in litigation:

The legal hold requirement is vastly misunderstood in my opinion. I have run into many corporate counsels that have the opinion;”I just send and email out to anyone in my company that could have responsive ESI asking them to be sure not to delete any data about the following subjects”. Then, if the delete something they shouldn’t have, it’s their neck, not mine or the company’s.

Many (but not all) corporate legal types consider ESI retention management as the legal hold process. Not a bad thought but really falls short of a true corporate definition of the term. To records managers ESI retention management refers to the systematic retention and disposition of the organizations electronic business records; either for the day to day running of the business, regulatory compliance or litigation support. And in this case I believe the records managers are right.

In the recent case; Jones v. Bremen High School Dist. 228, 2010 WL 2106640 (N.D. Ill. May 25, 2010), one of the discovery points made in the decision was what is the appropriate legal hold process to meet an organization’s legal hold responsibilities.

I have always been told relying on backups for eDiscovery purposes is a costly and time consuming mistake.

Searching through backup tapes or even a disk-based backup for eDiscovery is difficult. Imagine restoring 22 200 GB backup tapes of your employee workstations and

One of the most painful and risky aspects of the EDRM process is the collection and preservation of uncontrolled custodian ESI on laptops and desktops for ECA and legal hold.

Seven Strategies for Preventing eDiscovery from Making Your Life Miserable
How IT Professionals Can Get Ahead of the Curve

Date: Tuesday March 30, 2010
Time: 11 am PT/ 2 pm ET
Duration: One Hour

In the case Pinstripe, Inc. v. Manpower, Inc., 2009 WL 2252131 (N.D. Okla. July 29, 2009), the defendant ran afoul of the litigation hold requirement by relying on a manual form of placing litigation holds, e.g. send litigation hold notices out to affected custodians.

The risk in this process is that 1. you have to send the notice out to all potentially affected custodians and 2. you have to be sure they read and understand the notice.