The purpose of a litigation hold is to stop the destruction of potentially relevant or discoverable documents and information pursuant to a retention policy or otherwise. With the advent of electronic discovery, it is incumbent upon litigants to employ litigation holds as soon as claim or potential claim is reasonably clear. Otherwise, relevant documents might be destroyed, leading to sanctions such as adverse inferences, dismissal of claims, or default judgments. In other words, failing to implement a litigation hold is a quick way focus your case away from the law and the facts and on to discovery issues.
The following is a list of 10 practical tips for implementing a meaningful litigation hold during active or pending litigation:
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Describe the pending claim.
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Identify the recipient of the hold letter as someone who may have personal knowledge regarding the matter, or who may be in possession of or have access to information or documents potentially relevant to the matter.
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Order the suspension of any deletion, overwriting, or any other destruction of electronic information relevant to the matter that is under the recipient’s control. This task will be much more daunting for an IT manager than an individual employee’s work station.
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Broadly define the scope of covered information to include all documents, records or data of every kind residing or recorded (intentionally or unintentionally) in any medium or location other than within a person’s memory: paper, magnetic tape, photographs, maps, diagrams, applications, databases, microfilm, microfiche, emails, intranet, instant messages, blogs, voicemails, metadata, and any other electronic means of communication that are created, stored or received on the company’s computers or network systems or any other devices (phones, PDAs, applications or storage devices) or systems capable of storing electronic information.
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Instruct that the recipient search all information for anything relevant or potentially relevant to the claim. Emails and other electronic information should be segregated in a PC or Outlook folder, and all paper documents in a hard file.
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Hoarding is not a bad thing. Tell recipients to err on the side of over-saving.
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Designate one company employee as the point person for any questions about the litigation hold and employees’ duties to preserve information and documents.
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Alert recipients about the to the risk to the company and its employee for failing to heed the litigation hold request.
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Ensure that the recipient signs a verification signifying the receipt the litigation hold.
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Periodically recalculate the litigation hold to ensure continuing compliance.