We're a corporation with in-house counsel that coordinates our
litigation with various outside firms. The lit hold process is begun by
our in-house litigation attorney. A hold notice is distributed by
corporate legal to the divisional records manager and the divisional
president at the time the case is assigned to outside counsel. The local
DRM then coordinates the identification of all relevant documents and
works with the outside counsel. On a quarterly basis, legal sends a
report summarizing all active litigation to each division, at which
point the local DRM is to remind all parties that the hold is still in
place. Once the suit is settled, corporate legal issues a notice of
lifting of hold.

We instituted this process in the last few months, and I am in the
process of doing the training as part of other RIM training right now.
So far it seems to be working OK. One note though, is that virtually all
of our litigation comes several years after the records would normally
be closed and sent to storage. So our hold process consists mainly of
putting a hold code on stored records -- at least that is what I'm
trying to get to by encouraging everyone to send their records to
storage as soon as practical after they become inactive.

 
 
Nolene Sherman | Director of Records Management | Standard Pacific Homes
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