The Zubulake Checklist

The Zubulake standard for litigation communications and collections has become black letter law and has been cited and referenced in numerous cases since Zubulake V was issued. Judges in many jurisdictions assess companies’ preservation and production effectiveness against this checklist:

  1. Enable your “discovery liaison” to readily describe information custodians, systems, storage, and your retention policies

  2. Affirmatively and repeatedly communicate legal holds to all affected parties

  3. Integrate your retention policies and coordinators with discovery challenges and responsibilities

  4. Actively manage and monitor document collections

  5. Interview affected employees to determine sources of information

  6. Monitor compliance with legal holds on an ongoing basis

  7. Thoroughly document and demonstrate the efficacy of your process

  8. Prepare to take responsibility for ensuring that information is preserved, collected, and produced

Today, it's imperative that you re-evaluate and improve your process.  Most companies have significant gaps in how they track and manage legal holds and collections.  Filling these gaps with spreadsheets, notepads, and memory puts your company -- and you -- at risk.

To address process gaps and meet the new standards, revisit your process.

Be sure to address the following:

  • Review your litigation hold policies and procedures
  • Assess your processes for identifying who is affected and where information is stored --> close any knowledge and process gaps
  • Examine how you scope the request response and ensure the completeness of collecting documents
  • Enhance your related record keeping for these efforts
  • Make sure you can retain collected documents (and your process records) as a part of the request and case record keeping
  • Educate business and IT executives on the changing risk profile and standards for preservation and production

A systematic, consistent approach is required.

A different approach from attorney to attorney or case to case simply isn’t wise or defensible. Excel spreadsheets aren’t a robust practice and ultimately require additional overhead, data entry, and management leg work to ensure they reflect the actual facts.

PSS Systems’ Atlas LCC solution is the first and only software to specifically address the Zubulake checklist. It was designed with expert input and counsel from the top 10 law firms and leading litigators to naturally manage the process from start to finish – reducing your risks, your costs, and your anxiety. The LCC solution connects seamlessly to PSS Systems’ Atlas ERM solution so you can take a holistic and strategic approach to retaining what you must, disposing what you can, preserving with integrity and producing efficiently and completely.