Dead Weight: How To Undo A Legal Hold

It sounds simple but it can get complicated. One complication: overlapping holds, and “lack of clarity around what ESI is on hold and also how each hold is associated with its parent matter.” The larger problem is “preservation anxiety,” which results in unnecessary burdens on employees and a waste of time and money. “Before a custodian can be released from a legal hold,” writes Exterro’s Jim Gill, “legal teams must ensure that preservation obligations have ended and that the individual isn’t subject to concurrent active holds that involve overlapping data. This can be a daunting task for large organizations with hundreds of active legal holds and potentially thousands of custodians at any given time.”