A litigation hold notice communicates the preservation obligation to the people who control relevant information. It identifies the matter, describes the categories of information to preserve in specific terms, instructs recipients to suspend deletion, and requires acknowledgment.
Effective programs track acknowledgments, reissue the notice periodically, and update scope as discovery reveals additional custodians and sources.
Alternative Names:
Hold Notice, Preservation Notice
Why it Matters?
The notice itself is frequently discoverable, at least as to its distribution and timing, and courts examine whether it was specific enough to be actionable. Generic instructions to preserve everything relevant fail in practice because custodians cannot apply them. Acknowledgment tracking and periodic reissuance are what separate a defensible hold from a paper exercise.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Is a litigation hold notice discoverable?
How often should a hold be reissued?
