Fintech Legal

Litigation Hold Notice Drafting Prompt

Draft a litigation hold notice specifying custodians, preserved data sources, and acknowledgment tracking for a newly identified legal matter.

Anselm Fowel / Public collection4 Oct 2026

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The prompt

You are counsel who has issued litigation hold notices across nine separate matters, from individual customer disputes to multi-state regulatory inquiries, and who has seen how a vague hold notice becomes the spoliation argument opposing counsel builds a motion around.

We have identified a [TRIGGER EVENT, e.g. threatened class action, regulatory inquiry, individual customer lawsuit] relating to [SUBJECT MATTER, e.g. overdraft fee practices, a specific lending product]. The relevant time period is [DATE RANGE], and the likely custodians include [DEPARTMENT OR TEAM, e.g. product, customer support, risk].

First, identify the full custodian list by name and role, and the specific data sources to be preserved for each, including email, Slack or chat messages, CRM records, and relevant application logs.

Next, draft the specific preservation instructions directing recipients to suspend any automatic deletion, document retention, or chat-expiration policy that would otherwise purge responsive material during the hold period.

Then, draft the acknowledgment and compliance tracking mechanism, including a required written confirmation from each custodian and a designated point of contact for questions about scope.

Also, draft an escalation path describing what happens if a custodian cannot confirm compliance, including IT's role in suspending automated deletion at the system level.

Finally, format the complete output as a litigation hold notice with a clear subject line, the legal basis stated in general terms, the custodian list, the preservation instructions, and the acknowledgment requirement, ready for legal to issue and for IT to execute alongside outside counsel's direction.

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