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LEGAL TEMPLATE

Legal Hold Notice Template

Litigation hold: what to preserve, who must comply, IT actions, and hold release procedure.

Use this template

What's inside

Field

Details

Hold Name

Short descriptive name

Matter

Litigation, investigation, or regulatory matter

Issued By

Legal counsel name

Date Issued

Status

Active

What's This About

Describe the matter in plain language. Recipients need to understand what kind of information is relevant without needing a law degree.

What to Preserve

Everything potentially relevant to this matter, including but not limited to:

Category

Examples

Where It Lives

Email & messaging

Emails, Slack messages, Teams chats with or about [parties/topic]

Gmail, Outlook, Slack

Documents

Contracts, memos, reports, spreadsheets related to [topic]

Google Drive, SharePoint, local drives

Code & technical artifacts

Source code, commits, PRs, deployment logs, configs

GitHub, GitLab, CI/CD systems

Business records

Invoices, purchase orders, financial records

ERP, accounting system

Communication records

Meeting notes, calendar invites, recordings

Calendar, Zoom, note-taking tools

System data

Logs, database records, backups, analytics

Cloud provider, monitoring tools

Time Period

Preserve all materials from the following period:

Detail

Answer

Start date

End date

Ongoing — do not stop preserving until the hold is released

Key parties / custodians

Names of people whose files and communications must be preserved

Who Must Comply

Name

Role

Acknowledged

Date

Pending

Pending

Pending

Pending

IT / Systems Actions

  • Suspend auto-deletion policies for relevant mailboxes and accounts

  • Preserve relevant Slack channels (disable auto-delete)

  • Ensure database backups covering the hold period are retained

  • Disable lifecycle policies on relevant cloud storage

  • Notify SaaS vendors if their data retention policies could delete relevant data

Questions?

If you're unsure whether something is relevant, preserve it and ask. Contact:

Contact

Name

Email / Slack

Legal counsel

IT contact

Hold Release

This section is completed when the hold is no longer needed.

Detail

Answer

Released by

Release date

Reason

Matter resolved / settled / closed

Data disposition

Can preserved data be returned to normal retention policies?

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