Today, enterprise legal management provider Mitratech announced “Mitratech LegalHold,” a new product that helps companies send and manage legal holds via a four-stage process.

Mitratech said given current corporate legal needs, it was necessary to develop an easy-to-use legal hold web-based software.

“It was born out of a need for a simple, easy-to-use legal hold system for legal departments that don't have one, or [the one they have is] too big and too clunky to use,” said Mitratech product management senior vice president Chris Kraft. 

Mitratech senior product owner Manu Sharma said Mitratech LegalHold can be fully integrated into the Mitratech TeamConnect platform and other non-Mitratech enterprise legal management (ELM) software.

Sharma noted, and a demo testing for Legaltech News showed, that many forms in LegalHold were pre-populated based on data listed in the ELM. However, users can also manually fill in or modify that content as well.

LegalHold has four stages to create and send a legal hold. They include a section that lists all parties responsible for the legal hold; the hold notice message where companies can use a template or create a new preservation email; and an optional custom-made questionnaire.

The fourth stage is the software's recipients function where users can select which employees will be sent a legal hold message to their work email address. The function is automated by the human resources department's employee information, though such information can also be added.

After those emails have been sent, administrators can see when and which custodians have responded. What's more, when custodians don't respond to a notice, Mitratech allows users to send automated, scheduled emails reminding them of the notice. 

Administrators may also send out emails reminding custodians that the legal hold is active, in instances where the legal hold period is lengthy and employees may need reminders of their required compliance.

The new product announcement comes a few months after Mitratech launched TeamConnect Essentials, a web-based legal management platform geared toward midsize companies and their legal departments. TeamConnect Essentials is a simplified version of TeamConnect and joined Mitratech's other offerings that include e-billing solutions and workflow software that automates repetitive tasks.

Mitratech joins other legal technology companies that seek to make issuing legal holds more efficient. In April, Cicayda released an updated version of its Fermata legal hold solution that included offering multiple foreign language support. Earlier, e-discovery platform Catalyst expanded its legal hold offerings when it acquired TotalDiscovery, an e-discovery and legal hold software company. In 2017, e-discovery and information governance provider Controle also created legal hold app eNotify to fully integrate into Microsoft Office 365. And Zapproved has expanded its legal hold offering since receiving increased investment from Vista Equity Partners.