What is Legal Hold?

Problem

What is the Legal Hold feature in Discovery Accelerator and where can the Legal Hold status be seen?

Solution

Legal Hold is a feature within Discovery Accelerator (DA) that prevents items in the Enterprise Vault (EV) Archives from being deleted by the normal EV Storage Expiry or user deletion processes. Enabling Legal Hold in the Properties Tab of a DA Case allows items found by Searches within that Case to be placed on Legal Hold when the Search that found those items is Accepted and the items are in Review. If a Case does not have Legal Hold enabled and does have items in Review, those items may be placed on Legal Hold by enabling Legal Hold in the Case's Properties Tab, if the items are still present in the EV Archives and have not already been deleted by the normal EV Storage Expiry or user deletion processes.

It is important to note Legal Holds are applied at the Case level, meaning all items in Review within that Case will be placed on Legal hold if the Case has Legal Hold enabled and if the items are present in the EV Archives. It is not possible to enable Legal Hold on a per-Search basis.

It is also important to note Legal Holds are not a replacement for Enterprise Vault Retention Categories, but rather Legal Holds are an extra layer of deletion protection for specific items as found by Searches within a Case. If an item's Retention Period, as specified by the Retention Category, has expired and Storage Expiry is enabled in the EV environment, the item may be deleted if not on Legal Hold; if on Legal Hold, the Storage Expiry process will not delete the item until the Legal Hold is removed by disabled Legal Hold with the Case's Properties Tab.

A Case has Legal Hold enabled by default upon creation. If the default Legal Hold setting is accepted, any items found by Searches that have been Accepted will be placed on Legal Hold when in Review. If a Case is created with the Legal Hold option disabled, Legal Hold may be enabled at a later time by simply opening the Case's Properties Tab, checking the ' Put items on hold' option and entering a reason for enabling Legal Holds in the ' Reason' box.

The Legal Hold status of a Case may be determined by using one of the following methods:

- Go to the Cases Tab, open the Case and go to the Properties Tab. Look in the Legal Holds section for the option ' Put items on hold' If this option is checked and there is a reason listed in the ' Reason' box, the Case is enabled for Legal Hold. If this option is not checked and the ' Reason' box is blank, the Case is not on Legal Hold.

- Go to the Cases Tab and select All Cases in the left window. Simply review the ' Legal Hold State' column for each Case to determine its Legal Hold status.
 

Note: Legal Hold is not the only Enterprise Vault feature that protects against unintended expiry of items. See also Vault Interest for Accelerator searches, exempting an archive from expiry, and exempting a retention category from expiry.