All the sanctions disputes in eDiscovery case law illustrate the importance of legal holds in eDiscovery and this post from Onna discusses what you need to know.
Their post (What is a legal hold?) not only discusses what a legal hold is and the importance of legal holds in eDiscovery, it also discusses six steps in the legal hold process, some common legal hold challenges and what’s included in general best practices for conducting a defensible legal hold.
As Onna notes in its post, “[d]isputes over the spoliation of evidence and resulting sanctions requests are among the most common eDiscovery disputes every year.” And they cite perhaps the most famous eDiscovery case – Zubulake v. UBS Warburg – where the New York District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that evidence should have been preserved before filing the case. “Once a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must suspend its routine document retention/destruction policy and put in place a ‘litigation hold’ to ensure the preservation of relevant documents.” The plaintiff’s motion for adverse inference instruction sanctions was granted, and the jury ultimately awarded $29.2 million in damages.
If you’re an eDiscovery professional, you understand the importance of legal holds in eDiscovery, but Onna’s post gets into the process, the challenges and the best practices in addressing legal holds in today’s environment with more ESI sources than ever. Check it out here!
So, what do you think? How do you address the challenges associated with legal holds? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.
