Large Legal Departments Likely to Excel at Legal Holds, Preservation: Survey

Large corporations with fairly sizable legal departments may handle the most litigation, but they are often at the lowest risk for data loss and spoliation sanctions during e-discovery, according to Zapproved's “The Three Archetypes of Corporate E-discovery” report.

The report surveyed 116 respondents involved in legal holds at their company, 75 percent of which were legal team members, including general counsel, e-discovery managers and paralegals. The rest were from other in-house departments, including IT, compliance and records management.

The report divided respondents into three categories: “achievers,” “strugglers” and “idlers.” Achievers (35 respondents)—those proactively innovating to meet e-discovery and data management challenges—had effective, well-documented legal hold processes and were at a company that regarded the legal department as a strategic business partner. Strugglers (38 respondents), meanwhile, had a legal hold process in need of improvement and defined the legal department as reactionary within the broader organization.