Legal Hold Preservation
Design a legal-operations flow for placing selected files and custodians under preservation without broad unnecessary collection.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
A legal hold may need to preserve messages and files that would otherwise expire. Overly broad collection increases privacy and review cost, while missing a custodian or repository creates legal risk.
User context
Legal operations manager Chen is opening a hold for a contract dispute involving six employees, two shared drives, and a four-month period. One employee has already announced departure.
Product problem
The team needs precise scope, defensible preservation, custodian communication, and ongoing exception monitoring.
Objective
Create matter setup, custodian and source scoping, preservation confirmation, and hold monitoring for a legal dispute.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Define matter purpose, date range, people, and data sources
- Review estimated scope and access authority
- Issue preservation and custodian notices
- Monitor acknowledgements, source coverage, and exceptions
Screens and states
- Hold setup
- Scope review
- Preservation confirmation
- Hold monitoring
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Chen enters the dispute period and six custodians
- 02
The scope review distinguishes personal drives from named shared folders
- 03
She confirms preservation and sends role-appropriate notices
- 04
The monitor flags the departing employee's unsynced device for follow-up
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Capture legal authority, matter owner, scope rationale, and review date
- Estimate records and repositories before preservation
- Separate preservation from collection for review
- Track notices, acknowledgements, source success, and custodian changes
Constraints
- Hold details are restricted to authorized legal roles
- Preserved content cannot follow normal deletion
- Scope expansion requires documented rationale and approval
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four desktop screens covering scoped preservation and an at-risk source
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.