A legal hold is a process that an organization uses to preserve all forms of potentially relevant information when
litigation
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. ...
is pending or reasonably anticipated.
It is often issued when an organization receives a
request for production in pending litigation.
The legal hold is initiated by a notice or communication from legal counsel to an organization that suspends the normal disposition or processing of records, such as backup tape recycling, archived media and other storage and management of documents and information. A legal hold will be issued as a result of current or anticipated litigation, audit, government investigation or other such matter to avoid
evidence spoliation. Legal holds can encompass business procedures affecting active data, including backup tape recycling.
Recent amendments to the United States
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (officially abbreviated Fed. R. Civ. P.; colloquially FRCP) govern civil procedure in United States district courts. They are the companion to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rules promulgated by the ...
(FRCP) address the
discovery
Discovery may refer to:
* Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown
* Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown
* Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence
Discovery, The Discovery ...
of electronically stored information (ESI) (aka
e-discovery), expanding the use of a "legal hold" beyond preservation of paper documents.
The amendments were written in anticipation of legal arguments and
tactics related to the production of ESI, such as the
cost
Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it i ...
and difficulty of producing such ESI and claims that such ESI was missing, deleted, or otherwise inaccessible when it really wasn’t the case. These changes took effect December 1, 2006 and require organizations to hold all electronic records until each legal matter is formally settled, even if an organization only reasonably anticipates litigation.
See also
*
Electronic discovery
*
Electronically stored information
*
Records management
Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the information management, management of information in an organization throughout its records life-cycle, life cycle, from the time of ...
*
Spoliation of evidence
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Legal Hold
Legal terminology
Discovery (law)
Data retention