A very good discussion of legal holds and common myths surrounding legal holds was recently released by software as a service provider, LegalHoldPro. The “Signature Paper” is available for free and contains an extensive bibliography of key legal hold cases. The approach is easy to follow and turns some frequently asked questions/misconceptions into useful discussion points. A list of the “Myths” is below and the paper is available for free by clicking here.
- Myth: “A robust legal hold notification is a ‘nice-to-have,’ not a requirement.”
- Myth: “Asking for custodian acknowledgements puts me at greater risk.”
- Myth: “Putting an organization on notice of a need to preserve data is good enough to protect a safe harbor.”
- Myth: “The only way to ensure good faith preservation is to collect everything so a hold is no longer necessary.”
- Myth: “Legal hold notices are privileged documents and do not need to be produced in court.”
- Myth: “One must collect data and evidence each time a legal hold notice is sent.”
- Myth: “Legal holds are for defendants only.”
- Myth: “Sending the legal hold notice a single time is sufficient.”
- Myth: “Legal holds aren’t formally part of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and are not needed in state courts.”
- Myth: “The new FRCP rules requiring attorneys to ‘meet and confer’ result in greater certainty regarding what actions are required to preserve data for discovery.”
- Myth: “The courts are lenient toward spoliation as long as one is acting in good faith.”
- Myth: “Legal holds are expensive and time consuming to manage.”
Comments