An adverse inference instruction tells the jury it may or must presume that lost evidence would have been unfavorable to the party that failed to preserve it.

Auto-delete suspension halts automated deletion in systems that would otherwise purge data subject to a legal hold.

Curative measures are the lesser sanctions available for ESI loss where prejudice exists but intent to deprive does not.

A custodian interview identifies what relevant data a person holds, where it resides, and how they use their systems.

A data map documents an organization's information systems, what data each holds, where it resides, and who controls it.

The duty to preserve is the obligation to retain potentially relevant evidence once litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated.

Ephemeral messaging refers to applications that automatically delete messages after a set period, creating preservation and spoliation risk.

A hold acknowledgment is a custodian's confirmation that they received, read, and understand a litigation hold notice.

A hold release lifts preservation obligations when a matter concludes, allowing normal retention practices to resume.

Intent to deprive is the finding required for the most severe spoliation sanctions, that a party destroyed evidence to prevent its use.

A legal hold is a directive suspending routine data deletion so that potentially relevant information is preserved once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

A litigation hold notice is the written instruction to custodians directing them to preserve information relevant to anticipated or pending litigation.

Preservation scope defines which custodians, systems, data types, and date ranges must be retained under a legal hold.

Rule 37(e) is the federal rule governing sanctions for lost electronically stored information, reserving the harshest remedies for a party that acted with...

Spoliation is the loss, destruction, or material alteration of evidence a party had a duty to preserve, exposing that party to sanctions.

The trigger date is when the duty to preserve attaches, marking the point after which evidence destruction becomes sanctionable.