This CLE course will guide employment litigators in implementing litigation holds in collective, class, and individual lawsuits. The panel will discuss best practices for creating a litigation readiness and document preservation plan to avoid potentially costly spoliation allegations and sanctions under FRCP Rule 37(e).
Discovery in employment lawsuits is costly for employers and employees alike. Employers possess far more electronically stored information (ESI) than employees, making litigation holds and e-discovery particularly onerous for them. Employees are also at a disadvantage because they typically do not have the resources or technical expertise to conduct forensic audits or analyze ESI.
Mapping out a plan for collecting and preserving documents and ESI is essential to pursuing or defending an employment lawsuit. Early and effective litigation holds are critical, and employment counsel is the linchpin in this process, responsible for ensuring compliance with preservation and collection requirements.
Counsel must develop, implement, revise as appropriate, and ultimately lift litigation holds. Accordingly, robust underlying policies are essential to avoid missteps and sanctions. Spoliation sanctions can range from monetary penalties, evidence exclusion, adverse inference jury instructions, and default judgments. Counsel will position themselves to overcome spoliation allegations by following guidelines comporting with best practices and ongoing legal obligations.
Listen as our authoritative panel outlines effective techniques for using litigation holds in employment lawsuits. The panel will also offer solutions to real life challenges for attorneys implementing litigation holds, including departing employees, obsolete or legacy software systems, data on smartphones and other mobile devices, and more.
