ARMA International has just released a new user friendly book about building a defensible legal hold business process. 7 Steps for Legal Holds of ESI and Other Documents uses a business process flow chart to take the reader through seven steps in a defensible legal hold process. The book also includes a chapter discussing the oversight, development and management of the legal hold business process as well as several useful appendices, including model policy, procedures and forms.
The authors have analyzed hundreds of court cases to identify trends and current best practices for developing and implementing legal holds to best preserve ESI and other documents relevant to litigation, government investigation, anticipated litigation or anticipated government investigation in the United States. The book is designed to help organizations discharge their legal duty to preserve evidence whenever the duty to preserve evidence exists. The book also contains a comprehensive discussion of the duty to preserve evidence and known trigger events. The book contains a removable flow chart, practical tips for every aspect of implementing legal holds, a comprehensive self assessment questionnaire, case studies and numerous checklists.
The 7 Steps for Legal Holds discussed in the book are:
- Identify Trigger Events
- Analyze Preservation Duty - Is a Legal Hold Required
- Define the Scope of the Legal Hold
- Implement the Legal Hold
- Enforce and Examine the Effectiveness of the Legal Hold
- Modify the Legal Hold (if Necessary)
- Monitor and Remove the Legal Hold
As promised, ARMA has posted excerpts of the Table of Contents and the Introduction. The ARMA description is below.
Description
This book is a practical, how-to guide describing step-by-step a best practice process for identifying trigger events and implementing a litigation hold. It provides a straightforward description of why the law requires preservation, the scope of preservation, and practical tips on how to preserve records in an acceptable manner.
Includes a self-analysis checklist, a flow chart describing the process for implementing a litigation hold, chapters devoted to each step in the process, and case law citations supporting this best practices process.
To purchase the book from ARMA International's bookstore, click the cover above or here.
Readers of this blog can obtain a 10% discount at ARMA International's bookstore by using the coupon code found on this blog by clicking here.
To listen to a podcast about legal holds and the contents of the book from one of the authors, click here.
