If you have lately filed for divorce or have been served papers for a divorce, you can hire an attorney to signify your interests through the divorce proceeding. Upon recalling an attorney’s services, you will obtain what’s mentioned as a “litigation hold letter.” Through the course of your divorce, you will receive many forms, but this letter is essential for your divorce proceeding.
What Is Litigation Hold Letter?
A divorce attorney will usually send their clients a litigation hold letter after you have hired them. This document may be called a preservation letter and its purpose is simple. A litigation hold letter states you should preserve all information that may be interpreted as evidence on the occasion your case goes to trial. This includes all the required documents, but is not limited to:
- Written documentation like bank statements, or letters
- Electronically-stored information email, computer log, voicemail, internet file, computer drive, and digital recording.
What Does the Litigation Hold Letter Include?
The possibility of a litigation hold letter will depend on the particulars of your case and what will be an issue during possible litigation. Usually, it applies to all forms of data like calendar entries, cell phone data, task lists, and more. In the digital world, most documentation is electronic, which is why preserving your ESI is significant. This does not necessarily mean you cannot delete spam emails, but you should stop the monotonous destruction of data. When in doubt about the significance of evidence, save it or ask your lawyer as the lawyer explains litigation hold letter. If you arrange evidence that may be pertinent to the case, you may face many penalties for the destruction of evidence. These include liability consequences and possible authorizations.
Always Pay Attention to What Is Essential
Litigation holds notices do not need a business to preserve each record or email it has ever formed. Particularly for big corporations, this would be unbearable. Instead, they characteristically relate to a certain matter or any dispute that is the subject of litigation and need the recipient to locate and hold any records related to that stuff.
The first step in replying to a litigation hold is to carefully appraise what is being asked of you. Study the matter at issue and the persons likely to have relevant data or records about that issue. Then study how the matter can be described in a complete, but the clearly defined way that will let your employees quickly locate possibly responsive records.
Never Ignore Your Litigation Hold Letter
When you obtain your litigation hold letter, it is important that you read it carefully and take its terms very seriously. Divorce proceedings are taxing enough and the last thing you want to do is experience additional fees or penalties from the court for a failure to preserve all the evidence. This will hurt your case in the extended run.
What can happen if you disregard your litigation hold notice
If you disrespect a litigation hold notice or fail to implement a litigation hold, the party delivering the notice may seek spoliation authorizations. The judge must evaluate in a hearing whether spoliation occurred, and its impact. After recent amendments, the State Court Rules are close than ever to their federal counterparts. As a result, there is a four-part test that guides judges in determining a spoliation motion. Spoliation sanctions can always range from adverse jury orders to monetary punishment and can comprise shifting data recovery costs to the offender. A judge can also limit the ability of the guilty party to argue and put on the sign. The judge can default the offending party in certain conditions.
Conclusion
Litigation holds notices are developed to professionally alert businesses to preserve some data that is understood to be relevant to any kind of dispute. They endorse the cooperation needed to run everything smoothly in a lawsuit. Upon receipt of such a notice, your occupation should consult with your corporate attorney as soon as possible because it may be essential to institute and document a formal hold on convinced ESI. Failure to act can expose all of you to spoliation sanctions. So, every person should avoid those sanctions.
