For many organizations, full preservation readiness is a distant goal, with the interim marked by ad-hoc storage and retention policies and potentially monumental bills. However, dedicating the faculties and staffing necessary to address legal hold and preservation challenges is not an impossible task. As it turns out, there are many practical steps those overseeing legal data projects can take to start down this path.

PREX15's “Building the Preservation-Ready Organization” session shed some light on these steps. The discussion brought together a panel of legal experts who endeavored to identify the relationships, investments and cultural building tactics implicit in obtaining the nirvana-like state of preservation readiness. Well, Nirvana-like may be a bit of an exaggeration, but still an admirable status to obtain.

As with most data projects, the most critical (and as it turns out practical) steps legal operations professionals can take is finding and cultivating the right internal relationships.