Retention and legal holds

The retention schedule

Every period the firm keeps records for is a line on its Retention schedule, under Settings, Work management. Each line says how long, whether that is the least the firm must keep or the life of the record, the day it counts from, and the law or rule behind it. The periods ship with sensible defaults and their sources; the firm's own lawyer may change them, and each change is audited.

A matter's file is dated from its own type's years when it is archived. A type that names no period keeps its files indefinitely, as wills, deeds and titles are.

The review list

Each night the system lists records that have passed their day under Compliance, Due for review. It destroys nothing. For each, someone decides to keep it longer, with a reason, or to ask for destruction.

Destruction takes two people

One person asks and a second approves. Compliance, Destructions lists each request and where it stands. The destruction is recorded with a certificate of what was destroyed and by whose decision.

Legal holds

A hold over a matter, a party or a class of document suspends retention for everything it covers:

• nothing it covers is destroyed;
• an erasure asked for under a data subject request is refused;
• a hold over a class of document also covers documents filed after it was placed.

Holds are placed and lifted under Compliance, Legal holds.

Placing and lifting a hold are both audited.