CreatinganEnterpriseDiscoveryResponseTeam·Chapter4 87 on the individual custodians of the data to retain it. One area where companies seem to constantly fail in their legal hold obligations is e-mail. Thus, you should consider whether a process of automatic collection of e-mail should be instituted in your organization. Some companies find it is better to be safe than sorry and have instituted processes whereby all e-mail, PSTs, hard drives, and personal network shares are captured as soon as a hold is put in place. Naturally, the down side of this is that you will be keeping a lot of data that is not relevant to the subject litigation. Another important piece of your legal hold process is the release of the hold and the associated data. For companies with serial litigation this can be a complex and delicate balancing act. For others, it may be relatively simple. The key is to have a process in place whereby you can release data when it is no longer on hold for a matter while having the ability to retain it if necessary for a separate legal hold. Again, documentation of your steps and the rationale for your decisions should be retained in the event you later need to defend your actions. Many of the external vendors that provide legal hold software have a "Plug and Play" solution that incorporates these basic elements. Engaging in a Request for Proposal (RFP) process with such third- party vendors can be a beneficial education experience for your team and may help you to better define your needs and the holes in your process. My experience is that the tools these vendors offer are good for companies that have no automated legal hold process in place. It is only in the past year or so that many of these third-party vendors are working with companies that have an existing tool and they are replacing that tool. The data migration and work flow configurations with replacing an existing system can be more complex and time consuming than an original installation where no system exists. This being said, third-party vendors are expanding their capabilities and expertise in this area and it should