A common question that often arises is whether to physically collect/copy a person’s e-mail account once that person is placed on a litigation hold. Rather than copy the e-mail account, many companies will simply turn off the “auto-delete” function and issue the employee a preservation notice. By doing so, the company is essentially preserving in place. Although some may question this method of preservation, it is no different than if an employee had a box of potentially relevant documents in his office and, rather than make a copy of the box, the employee was instructed to continue to hold the box in his office until further notice. In most situations, this should be sufficient to satisfy a company’s preservation obligations.
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