Policiy Management & Development
- What is a litigation hold strategy? A litigation hold strategy (lit-hold) is a plan organizations put in place to outline how to protect information should litigation be anticipated. It outlines where information is stored, on what systems, and who is responsible for that information. A lit-hold strategy should be updated as often as is necessary, generally at least once per year.
- What is a document retention policy? A document retention policy outlines how long information is retained and how it is destroyed once that time is up. In general, physical and electronic documents should be treated the same as far as retention periods. For example, you would want to keep customer records, regardless of whether they are electronic or paper, for the same amount of time unless there is a need to treat them differently. The same goes for any information (e-mail, financial records, or other work product.).
- What is a technology utilization policy? A technology usage policy covers all aspects of how an organization's technology is to be used. They can be broken out into individual documents (ie. e-mail usage, internet usage, computer usage, etc.) but a generaly technology policy will cover most everything an organziation need. Again, this document should be kept current and reviewed at least annualy to make sure it still fits your organization and employee work flow.
- How long will you hold onto case data: We recognize cases can extend months if not years. Because our clients typically utilize us throughout the lifetime of a case we will hold onto data indefinitely until we receive a data destruction authorization notice, giving us permission to destroy all information related to a case. Additionally, the 'case activation fee' is charged monthly and notices are sent our monthly reminding parties that we are in posession of case information.
- What is this 'case activation fee' I received on my invoice? There is a monthly fee to keep a case active in our system and retain case information. If you do not wish to pay this fee we can do one of the following:
- Arrange to transfer case information to a third-party's control and storage. You should contemplate issues such as chain of custody, data integrity, and any potential conflict that may come up
- Destroy any data we posses once we receive a data 'destruction authorization notice'