20 Best Legal Hold Software For Preserving Case Data In 2024
10 Best Legal Hold Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
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Navigating the intricacies of law practice management, I understand how demanding it can be. That's why I stand by the effectiveness of legal hold software. These innovative tools, in a nutshell, simplify and automate the legal hold process, making life much easier for you and your team. By incorporating one of these solutions, you not only streamline your workflow but also enhance your IT team's compliance and efficiency. Gone are the days of misplacing crucial documents or failing to meet hold requirements.
One of the major pain points these tools address is the cumbersome process of manual legal holds. Juggling between deadlines, preserving data, and dealing with ever-changing legal requirements can be daunting. However, with reliable legal hold software, you can alleviate these stressors. I encourage you to explore these selections and discover the transformative power they can bring to your practice.
What Is A Legal Hold Software?
Legal hold software is a specialized tool designed to help law firms, service providers, corporate legal teams, and other legal professionals manage the legal hold process efficiently. Legal hold software automates the process of preserving data for legal cases. It helps organizations manage, track, and enforce legal hold orders, ensuring that relevant information is not altered or destroyed during litigation.
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These software solutions enable the automation of numerous tasks, including sending hold notifications, preventing deletion, tracking acknowledgment from custodians (people who possess relevant information), automating reminders, managing spreadsheets, and providing a defensible legal hold of the entire process. The goal is to avoid time-consuming and the spoliation of evidence, streamline workflows, collect data, enhance compliance with legal obligations, and ultimately reduce the risk of court sanctions or adverse judgments.
Best Legal Hold Software Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Mitratech TAP Workflow Automation | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Mitratech LegalHold | Pricing upon request | Website |
| OpenText | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Nuix | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Casepoint | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Concourse | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Acuity | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Drata | Pricing upon request. | Website |
| ZDiscovery | Pricing upon request | Website |
| OpenText EnCase Information Assurance | Pricing upon request | Website |
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Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareBest Legal Hold Software Reviews
Best for custom legal hold workflows
Mitratech TAP Workflow Automation is a flexible workflow automation platform designed to serve legal and compliance teams. It supports organizations in structuring their operations to reduce administrative overhead and improve efficiency across various business functions.
Why I Picked Mitratech TAP Workflow Automation: It simplifies legal hold procedures by enabling fully automated workflows tailored to legal needs. It offers a customizable platform that supports the complete lifecycle of legal holds, from initiation to release. This ensures that your team can quickly trigger, monitor, and track holds without manual intervention. TAP’s reporting and notification capabilities also allow you to keep stakeholders informed throughout the process and prevent hold-related oversights. The system also includes document preservation functions that support your team’s record-keeping responsibilities.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Standout features include audit trail, compliance tracking, and document management capabilities that can provide robust support for handling sensitive case data. These features allow your team to stay organized while adhering to strict privacy and compliance regulations. Integrations include DocuSign, Adobe eSignature, TeamConnect, and VendorInsight.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Facilitates real-time collaboration
- Capable of scaling across various functions
- Customizable, automated workflows
Cons:
- Could offer more integrations
- Advanced features can be complex to implement
Mitratech's LegalHold is a comprehensive SaaS solution designed to automate and manage the legal hold process for organizations. LegalHold ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements by overseeing the entire lifecycle of a legal hold, from issuance to release.
Why I Picked LegalHold: LegalHold maintains detailed logs of all actions taken within the system, from the issuance of legal holds to the acknowledgment of notices by custodians. This feature is invaluable for demonstrating compliance during audits and legal proceedings. By providing a transparent and easily accessible record of all activities, LegalHold helps organizations mitigate risks associated with legal holds and ensures that they can respond accurately to any inquiries or challenges.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Standout features include a notification system that allows users to send automated, trackable notices to custodians, ensuring that all relevant parties are informed and compliant with legal hold requirements. The tool includes workflow automation capabilities and a dedicated portal for custodians. Integrations include Active Directory, TeamConnect, and eCounsel.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Portal for custodians
- Audit trail capabilities
- Compliance reporting
Cons:
- Could offer more robust customization
- Potential learning curve for new users
OpenText is a powerhouse tool designed to simplify the legal hold process. It offers an array of functionalities to manage holds with accuracy, ensuring you never miss a beat. OpenText excels in handling intricate case management scenarios, providing a robust tracking system that suits complex legal environments.
Why I Picked OpenText: In my quest to find the perfect legal hold software, OpenText was a clear standout. I picked it for its impressive handling of complex case management scenarios, a feature I found to be unrivaled in its class. This feature makes OpenText perfect for law departments and corporations dealing with multiple intricate cases simultaneously. The robust tracking capabilities make it easier to keep track of holds, ensuring compliance and reducing potential legal risks.
Standout Features & Integrations:
OpenText goes beyond basic hold notifications or messaging, offering advanced features like hold reminders, escalations, surveys, and status reports. The software also boasts an intuitive interface that's easy to navigate. OpenText integrates with the broader OpenText eDiscovery applications, ensuring a smooth transition of information from one process to another.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Intuitive interface
- Excellent for complex case management
- Robust tracking capabilities
Cons:
- Learning curve for non-technical users
- Higher cost compared to some alternatives
- Might be overkill for smaller firms
Nuix
Best for efficient eDiscovery and forensic internal investigations
NUIX serves as a comprehensive eDiscovery platform with dedicated legal hold capabilities. It is specifically designed to simplify the process of identifying, preserving, and analyzing data in legal cases.
Why I Picked NUIX: When it came to selecting NUIX, the tool's eDiscovery-centric focus made it stand out from the crowd. This specificity is what leads me to believe that it's best for firms seeking a legal hold solution tied tightly with eDiscovery solution.
Standout Features & Integrations:
NUIX's features, including advanced search, analytics, document review, and metadata reporting capabilities, all support the intricate process of eDiscovery. The tool also integrates well with various data sources, which allows it to capture and preserve data relevant for legal hold.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Wide range of data source integrations
- Advanced analytics and reporting
- Specialized in eDiscovery
Cons:
- Potential overcomplexity for smaller organizations
- May not be suitable for firms not engaged heavily in eDiscovery
- Pricing information is not transparent
Casepoint is an eDiscovery platform that provides comprehensive features for legal hold management. Its powerful features make it an effective tool for legal teams that need to manage and preserve electronically stored information (ESI) for potential litigation, aligning it with its 'best for' category of Legal Hold Management.
Why I Picked Casepoint: I selected Casepoint because of its strong emphasis on legal hold management, a crucial aspect of litigation. It not only provides robust functionality for this purpose but also adds a layer of intelligence that differentiates it from many other tools. Considering its unique set of features tailored for legal hold scenarios, I judged it as the best for legal hold management.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Casepoint offers a set of features to aid in legal hold management, including customizable legal hold notices, automatic reminders, and a user-friendly dashboard for easy tracking. The platform can also integrate with a variety of data sources to manage holds effectively across diverse sets of data.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Able to integrate with multiple data sources for more effective holds
- User-friendly dashboard for easy tracking of legal holds
- Comprehensive set of features designed for legal hold management
Cons:
- Interface may not be as modern as some alternatives
- May have a learning curve for those unfamiliar with eDiscovery software
- Pricing information not readily available
Concourse is a tool designed to support and streamline the entire legal hold process. It offers an extensive range of features that cater to various aspects of legal hold management, making it the best for comprehensive legal hold tasks.
Why I Picked Concourse: I chose Concourse because it provides an all-encompassing solution for managing legal holds. The comprehensive nature of the tool, offering everything from notification to reporting, makes it stand out and confirms my judgment that it is best for extensive legal hold management.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Concourse provides a myriad of useful features, including automated notifications, customizable questionnaires, and robust reporting capabilities. The tool integrates effectively with various data sources, enhancing its ability to manage and track legal holds.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Robust reporting capabilities
- Integrates effectively with various data sources
- Offers comprehensive features for legal hold management
Cons:
- Interface may not be intuitive for first-time users
- May be too complex for small-scale legal hold tasks
- Pricing is not transparent
Acuity, a product of Mitratech, serves as an integrated risk management platform that provides legal hold functionality. Its purpose is to help organizations understand, manage, and mitigate risk while fulfilling legal obligations.
Why I Picked Acuity: The reason I picked Acuity for this list is its focus on offering a comprehensive risk management solution, something that distinguishes it from many other tools. I believe Acuity is best for organizations that need to tie their legal hold processes into a larger risk management strategy.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Key features of Acuity include legal hold process automation, robust reporting and risk assessment capabilities. Acuity stands out with its deep integration into Mitratech's suite of legal and compliance management tools, allowing data flow between systems and unified risk management.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Integration with Mitratech suite
- Process automation
- Comprehensive risk management
Cons:
- Could be an overkill for firms seeking just legal hold software
- Might be too complex for smaller organizations
- Pricing not readily available
Drata is a tool designed to automate and streamline the process of maintaining and proving compliance. It's a one-stop shop for all compliance needs, making it ideal for organizations looking to save time and reduce manual work in their compliance management efforts.
Why I Picked Drata: I chose Drata for this list due to its unique emphasis on automation, which sets it apart from many other tools. Its ability to simplify and streamline compliance processes is what makes it stand out. With this in mind, I determined it to be the best tool for automated compliance management.
Standout Features & Integrations:
Drata offers a suite of features designed to streamline the compliance process, including automated control monitoring, evidence collection, and continuous compliance checks. Its integrations span a variety of platforms, such as cloud providers, identity providers, and project management tools, allowing businesses to monitor their entire tech stack in one place.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Continuous compliance checks ensure ongoing compliance
- Extensive list of integrations, covering a wide range of platforms
- Strong focus on automation to streamline compliance
Cons:
- Setup may require some technical know-how
- May be more complex than needed for businesses with less stringent compliance needs
- Pricing information is not readily accessible
ZDiscovery is a cloud-based legal hold and eDiscovery software designed to aid legal departments in managing litigation response. The software simplifies the eDiscovery process, making it ideal for companies looking to streamline their in-house eDiscovery.
Why I Picked ZDiscovery: In choosing ZDiscovery, its ability to facilitate an efficient and simplified eDiscovery process stood out. Its comprehensive, user-friendly features cater to both small and large-scale eDiscovery projects. Given these aspects, I judged ZDiscovery to be best for streamlining the eDiscovery process.
Standout Features & Integrations:
ZDiscovery offers a robust suite of eDiscovery tools, including legal hold notification, custodian surveys, and data preservation capabilities. It integrates with various data sources, including Office 365, allowing access and management of data.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Robust integration with data sources like Office 365
- Comprehensive, user-friendly features
- Simplifies the eDiscovery process
Cons:
- Limited integration with non-Microsoft platforms
- May be more features than needed for very small legal teams
- Pricing information is not publicly available
OpenText EnCase Information Assurance is a powerful tool designed to help businesses manage and secure their data effectively. It is a comprehensive data governance solution, making it an excellent choice for organizations seeking a wide-ranging approach to data control and security.
Why I Picked OpenText EnCase Information Assurance: I selected OpenText EnCase Information Assurance because of its comprehensive nature and its deep capabilities in the realm of data governance. This tool presents an effective blend of data search, classification, and security features, making it different from other legal hold tools. Thus, I believe it is best suited for comprehensive data governance.
Standout Features & Integrations:
OpenText EnCase Information Assurance offers extensive search capabilities, sophisticated classification of data, and robust security features, including data loss prevention. It integrates effectively with a variety of other data systems and platforms, enabling organizations to manage data across multiple sources.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Robust data loss prevention features
- Offers extensive search and classification capabilities
- Comprehensive data governance solution
Cons:
- Setup and deployment may be complex compared to simpler tools
- The extensive suite of features may be overwhelming for small teams
- Pricing information is not readily available
Other Legal Hold Software Tools
Below is a list of additional legal hold software I shortlisted but did not make it to the top 10. Definitely worth checking them out.
- Pagefreezer
For web content archiving and preservation
- DISCO Hold
For litigation holds and data retention
- OnitX
For streamlining legal operations through automation
- Logikcull
For quick data discovery and review
- CrashPlan
Good for providing data backup with legal hold functionalities
- Kiteworks
Good for secure collaboration alongside legal hold functions
- Everlaw
Good for visualizing data connections
- Exterro
Good for managing complex e-discovery processes
- Venio Systems
Good for automating legal hold notification process
- Knovos
Good for a comprehensive approach to legal hold management
Other Legal Software Reviews
Here are some other popular types of legal software you might be interested in.
Selection Criteria For Legal Hold Software
When choosing legal hold software, there are several key considerations to take into account. I've evaluated numerous legal hold tools, but in this case, I was particularly interested in how these tools handled data management, ease of use, and robustness of features.
Core Functionality
- Issue Legal Holds: It's essential that the tool can easily issue legal holds to ensure data is preserved for potential litigation.
- Track Acknowledgements: Keeping track of who has acknowledged receipt of a legal hold is critical for maintaining a defensible process.
- Automate Reminders: To ensure that those on hold continue to preserve their data, the tool needs to be able to send automated reminders.
- Release Holds: Once a case is closed or a person is no longer subject to the hold, the tool should facilitate releasing the hold.
Key Features
- Integration Capabilities: It's essential that the legal hold software can integrate with other systems in an organization, like email or HR systems.
- Scalability: The tool should be able to accommodate both small and large numbers of holds, as well as single custodian and multi-custodian holds.
- Reporting: Detailed reports are crucial to keep track of the status of holds, compliance rates, and overall program effectiveness.
- Audit Trails: The tool should create detailed records of all legal hold activities to ensure defensibility.
Usability
When it comes to usability, I believe that legal hold software should offer:
- Intuitive Interface: Legal hold software should be easy to navigate, even for those without a technical background. Menus should be clearly labeled and actions should be straightforward.
- Onboarding and Customer Support: Providers should offer comprehensive onboarding to get teams up to speed quickly, as well as ongoing customer support to assist with any issues.
- Role-based Access: The tool needs to provide role-based access that is simple to configure to ensure data security and maintain confidentiality.
- Accessibility: The software should be accessible across various devices, including mobile, to ensure functionality no matter where users are located.
People Also Ask
What are the benefits of using legal hold software?
Using legal hold software offers several benefits, including:
- Improved Compliance: Legal hold software can help ensure that your organization remains compliant with legal obligations related to data preservation.
- Efficiency: Automated notifications, reminders, and tracking of legal holds save time and reduce the manual effort involved in the process.
- Defensibility: Detailed audit trails created by the software can provide a defensible record of your legal hold process.
- Centralized Management: Legal hold software provides a central location to manage all holds, making it easier to get an overview of the status and impact of legal holds across your organization.
- Risk Reduction: By automating the legal hold process, you can minimize the risk of spoliation and the potential for severe penalties.
How much do these legal hold tools cost?
The cost of legal hold software varies greatly depending on the complexity of the tool, the size of the organization, and the specific features required. Many vendors do not openly disclose pricing but instead offer customized quotes based on your specific needs.
What are the typical pricing models for legal hold software?
Pricing models for legal hold software are typically either subscription-based or based on the number of users or custodians. Subscription pricing is often billed annually, and user-based pricing involves a cost per user or per custodian on hold.
What is the typical range of pricing for legal hold software?
Given the customized nature of most legal hold software pricing, it’s challenging to provide a definitive range. However, it’s not uncommon for costs to range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month, depending on the tool’s complexity, the number of users, and the level of customer support required.
What are some of the cheapest and most expensive legal hold software options?
Drata and Everlaw are typically some of the more cost-effective options, while tools like OpenText EnCase Information Assurance tend to be on the higher end of the spectrum. However, the cost can greatly vary depending on specific needs and the size of the organization.
Are there any free options for legal hold software?
As of my last review, there were no free legal hold software options available. Most providers offer a paid service due to the specialized nature of the tools and the high level of customer support often required.
Other Case Management Software Reviewed
Here are some other tools you may need if you are looking for matter and case management software solutions.
Summary
In summary, selecting the best legal hold software depends on various factors, including core functionality, key features, usability, and cost. It's essential to carefully assess your specific needs and thoroughly research available tools.
Key takeaways:
- Core Functionality: The chosen legal hold software should enable you to send notices, automate follow-ups, maintain an audit trail, and manage all legal holds in one centralized place.
- Key Features and Usability: The software should be intuitive and user-friendly, with key features like customizable templates, real-time tracking, data collection, robust reporting, and integrations with existing systems. The ideal software will also offer strong customer support to assist with onboarding and ongoing queries.
- Cost: Consideration of cost is crucial. Look at both the immediate and long-term costs, considering the number of users, features required, and the level of customer support needed. Always clarify pricing models with the vendors and ensure that there are no hidden fees.