M365 removed legal hold communications as of August. Casepoint discusses the workflow impact and risks of that in this post!

As discussed by Brock Carrier of Casepoint (M365 Removed Legal Hold Communications With Custodians: Workflow Impact and Risks, available here), organizations can no longer create and send legal hold notices in Microsoft 365 (M365). M365 removed legal hold communications and workflows, including notices, reminders, and acknowledgements on August 31, 2025, in favor of a “new eDiscovery experience” inside the Purview portal, according to Microsoft.

The change is a major blow to legal teams. It has already interrupted workflows and created legal risks by undermining such a foundational feature set.

As Carrier notes, “You can still put custodians on hold and place data (M365 only) on hold. But there’s no ability to manage the communication lifecycle — send notices/reminders/follow-ups/questionnaires, track acknowledgements, store templates, and have access to status tracking — an obvious core set of features.”

So, what are the legal and compliance consequences of this? And how are teams responding to where M365 falls short? Find out here, it’s only one click! Consider this a communication about legal holds! 😉

So, what do you think? How is your organization dealing with the removal of legal hold communications by M365? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using Microsoft Designer, using the term “robot lawyer staring at a blank screen on its computer”.

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