Legal Hold

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Legal hold is a process designed to preserve all relevant information when litigation is reasonably expected to occur.

• aka litigation hold
• is the notification instructing to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) and/or paper documents that may be relevant to a pending legal case
• information subject to legal hold
  • might be defined by regulators or industry best practice
  • or there may be a litigation notice from law enforcement or lawyers pursuing a civil action
• means that computer systems may be taken as evidence
• company subject to legal hold will usually have to suspend any routine deletion/destruction of electronic or paper records and logs