5 Green Flags to Look For When Buying Legal Hold Technology
How the Right Features in Legal Hold Technology Can Streamline Compliance and Mitigate Risk
With compliance penalties for mishandled data skyrocketing — think $10 million or more for GDPR violations — choosing a robust legal hold solution is one of the smartest investments you can make to safeguard your organization’s future. Factor in the increasing complexity of regulatory requirements and the ever-present risk of litigation, and the tools you rely on must now do more than check boxes – they should actively enhance your team’s efficiency and defensibility.
But how can you tell which solution will actually meet your needs? From user-friendly interfaces to robust reporting capabilities, there are five key green flags that indicate whether buying legal hold technology will be effective in streamlining your processes, ensuring compliance, and aligning with your organization’s goals. Let’s explore these essential characteristics to help you make a confident and informed decision.
An effective legal hold process is a bit like insurance — if you don’t invest in it now, you’re sure to need it later (and not having it could be costly).
Green Flag #1: User-Friendly Interface
A user-friendly interface ensures quick adoption after buying legal hold technology across your team, regardless of how technically savvy they may be. With a well-designed system, your users can navigate processes more easily, complete tasks faster, and minimize the risk of errors that could jeopardize compliance.
Here’s are some green flags to look out for when determining if a solution has an easy-to-use interface:
- Clear Navigation and Layout
- Customizable Workflows
- Automated Reminders and Escalations
- Cross-Device Compatibility
- Seamless Integration
In turn, this will grant your team:
- Faster Implementation
- Higher Adoption Rates
- Fewer Errors
By prioritizing an interface with these user-friendly features, you’re not just ensuring a smoother onboarding experience – you’re equipping your team to handle legal hold processes with confidence and precision.
Green Flag #2: Robust Automation Capabilities
The legal hold process is built on effective engagement with key custodians of potentially relevant data or documents. This process begins with sending notifications to all parties involved and ensuring their attestation. Having automated standardized templates for notifications can save time and avoid miscommunication as custodians receive reliable notice of the legal hold.
Traditionally, it falls to the legal department to either conduct in-person interviews with these custodians to ascertain where this information is held or, frequently, to delegate the job to outside counsel.
Look at buying legal hold technology that leverages automation to streamline critical steps in the process. With the right solution, you can:
- Instantly halt the disposal of relevant data as soon as litigation is anticipated
- Automate custodian notifications, eliminating the need to manually manage contact information
- Consolidate all preserved evidence into a centralized, easily searchable repository for discovery purposes
- Track legal hold status and custodian engagement in real-time, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks
Automating processes using legal hold technology can spare a legal department much of the cost involved in this part of the process through questionnaire templates, elimination of sit-downs with attorneys, and automated reminders and escalations.
Green Flag #3: Integration with Existing Legal Tech Stack
The most effective legal hold technology does operate in silo, but in tandem with your existing technology. From HR systems to enterprise platforms or collaboration tools, integration capabilities are critical to ensuring smoother workflows and efficient data sharing. Without this connectivity, legal teams may face redundant data entry, siloed information, and increased risks of errors that can derail compliance efforts.
When your legal hold software integrates with your HR system, for example, employee data like job titles, roles, and departments can be automatically synced. This ensures you’re always working with up-to-date custodian information, saving time and minimizing the risk of missing key custodians during the notification process.
A seamless connection between legal holds and other enterprise systems makes everything run smoother, from preserving data to ensuring compliance. By cutting down on repetitive tasks, improving collaboration, and making reporting more efficient, your legal team can actually do more with less in 2025 and beyond. And to that end, the benefits are long-lasting!
Green Flag #4: Advanced Reporting and Analytics
Legal teams need the ability to track their compliance efforts, identify potential bottlenecks, and produce detailed documentation to demonstrate defensibility in audits and litigation. Advanced reporting tools go beyond basic metrics, offering actionable insights that help teams refine processes and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
The value of the reporting and analytics provided is their ability to provide a clear view of your legal hold program’s performance.
For example: Real-time progress tracking allows you to monitor response rates from custodians and quickly identify overdue tasks. Customizable reports enable you to tailor data presentations for different stakeholders, such as compliance officers or external auditors, ensuring that the right information is always at hand.
Advanced reporting and analytics provides you with:
- Insightful Data: Comprehensive metrics allow legal teams to evaluate the effectiveness of their workflows, identify trends, and address gaps before they become compliance risks.
- Defensibility: Detailed, audit-ready reports offer a clear, documented trail of actions taken, which can be invaluable in defending your process during litigation or regulatory scrutiny.
- Efficiency Gains: Automated reporting saves time by eliminating the need to manually compile data, allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
By leveraging advanced reporting and analytics, your legal hold technology becomes more than just a tool for compliance; it transforms into a strategic asset for continuous improvement and risk mitigation.
Green Flag #5: Security and Compliance Measures
Effective legal hold software addresses the inherent lack of visibility and control in traditional legal hold processes, which often result in incomplete compliance, inefficiency, and difficulties in locating critical information. Given the foundational importance of the legal hold process in corporate legal operations, effective monitoring and management are essential.
For enterprises with a large number of custodians or facing multiple litigations, managing legal holds manually can be overwhelming and error-prone leading to issues with security through increased risk.
The right software should allow you to:
- Adjust based on legal hold changes and scope
- Continuously monitor custodian changes
- Integrate it with HR and enterprise databases
- Leverage customized, self-guided questionnaires
These features create a legal hold process that not only reduces the time and cost of the hold but also decreases risk, ensuring all parties are compliant.
Selecting the Right Legal Hold Technology
Implementing the right legal hold technology is proven to reduce administrative time by up to 75%, but with regulatory fines reaching millions and litigation costs steadily rising, you can’t afford to misinvest. By focusing on these five green flags, you can ensure your chosen solution meets the needs of your organization.
Want more information on investing in legal hold technology? Check out our legal hold buyer’s guide for additional steps to selecting the right software and adopting it to your team.
