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Legal Holds

EarlyBeta enables organizations to preserve collaboration data during litigation, regulatory inquiries, internal investigations, or HR matters. Holds can target all data for an organization or specific conversations and documents. Protected data is excluded from automated retention cleanup until the hold is released.

Why Legal Holds Matter for Collaboration

Workplace collaboration systems often contain records relevant to legal and HR matters:

  • Employment disputes may require preserving communications related to performance, termination, or harassment claims
  • Regulatory inquiries may require preserving records related to compliance programs or policy enforcement
  • Internal investigations may require preserving records while investigating misconduct or policy violations
  • eDiscovery may require preserving relevant communications and documents for litigation

EarlyBeta's legal hold system ensures that relevant data is preserved regardless of normal retention policies.

Supported Hold Reasons

  • Litigation — Employment dispute, contractual dispute, or other civil litigation
  • Regulatory investigation — Government inquiry or compliance investigation
  • Subpoena — Court-ordered production of communications or documents
  • Internal investigation — HR review, misconduct investigation, or security incident

What Can Be Preserved

Holds can protect any combination of:

  • Audit logs — Records of collaboration data access
  • Team conversations — AI-assisted discussions and collaboration history
  • Shared documents — Uploaded files, meeting notes, internal documentation

Holds can be broad (all data for an organization) or targeted (specific conversations or documents), allowing you to preserve only what's relevant while normal retention continues for unrelated data.

Hold Lifecycle

  1. Creation — Hold is created with documented reason, scope, and optional expiration
  2. Active — Protected data is excluded from all retention cleanup
  3. Release — Hold is released with documented reason; data becomes eligible for normal retention

All hold operations are recorded in the tamper-evident audit trail.

Collaboration Scenarios

Employment Dispute

When an employment dispute arises, create a legal hold targeting the relevant HR-related conversations and documents. Include audit logs to preserve the record of who accessed what information. Maintain the hold until the matter is resolved.

Internal Investigation

When investigating misconduct, create a hold on conversations and documents related to the matter. Preserve access logs that may be relevant to the investigation until the matter is concluded.

eDiscovery Request

When responding to litigation discovery, create a targeted hold on communications related to the matter. Preserve the records until production is complete and legal counsel authorizes release.

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