The advent of electronic discovery has introduced new terms into the IT vocabulary. One term, which now seemingly strikes fear into the hearts of IT managers, is the “Legal Hold", or the "Litigation Hold".

In the early days of electronic discovery, many attorneys, lacking an understanding of their clients’ information systems, reacted to the onset of litigation by demanding that ALL electronic documents be preserved. This was particularly true for clients faced with multiple lawsuits. The original lawsuits were followed by later lawsuits, with similar preservation requirements. The result – a never ending “hold everything” environment, where nothing could ever be deleted.

This edict frequently extends to backup tapes. IT “best practices” (some of which are still recommended today) call for the retention of weekly, monthly and yearly backup tapes, “just in case” old files are mistakenly deleted. Since unique content frequently resided on those tapes, the tentacles of the litigation hold extended to those tapes as well. As the tapes could also not be destroyed, or even recycled, a backlog of thousands of tapes was a common result.

Kahn Consulting helps its clients develop more targeted Legal Holds for existing lawsuits. The Records Information Management compliance strategy integrates Legal Hold policies, procedures and training into the overall solution, so that targeted Legal Holds in the future are the natural result. Legal Hold policies and procedures can also be developed for firms with an effective records management program in place.

For firms with a backup tape backlog, Kahn Consulting can evaluate the tape environment to formulate an optimal, defensible strategy for backup tape remediation.

Created by  Three Hats Marketing