I would have to agree with Larry, but I would add two other issues. 

One is that documents placed on legal hold may not simply be duplicates placed in a separate legal hold repository. There may  be a need to access the originals within their working environment. My friends who do computer forensics describe situations where they have to shut down several business processes to get their information.

Another is that the laws of civil procedure do not make a distinction between records and non-records. Indeed, the previous law used the term "document" repeatedly. The newer law has added ESI, but it steadfastly ignores the term record. Getting twisted up in your knickers about what is a record and what is a non-record for anyone but the government is not worth the time.

In the case of legal holds the documents change state from having disposition applied to having disposition withdrawn. Retention does not stop, you just don't dispose of it, so  one does not have two retentions going on the same document.

There are times within an organization where the same information serves two different purposes, like a project budget document that is also given to accounting. But we normally create separate instances of the information and treat them as different documents: accounting keeps their project budget document for two years and the project manager keeps hers until the end of the project plus maybe three years.

Having a pragmatic solution is OK, but the balance of power changes within any organization depending upon recent history. It is really better to stick with standard RIM practices--and this is a great venue for learning what that is, than go for a 3% solution. 

In addition, "defensible disposition" is a boogeyman. Records managers have been doing it "in good faith" "according to the normal course of business" since before World War II. A 3% solution may not be recognizable to the judge.

Best wishes,
Carol

<br>
<br><br><br>Carol E.B. Choksy, PhD, CRM, PMP
<br>CEO
<br>IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc.
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<br>317-294-8329
Check out the latest blog post: http://bit.ly/X8sPed 

<br>Adjunct Lecturer
<br>School of Library and Information Science
<br>Indiana University, Bloomington
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