It is important that your Litigation Response Plan explains your preservations and litigation hold policies, protocols, and practices.

With preservation, you need to act fast and early. Litigation hold notices must go out to the appropriate people in the company that are responsible to make sure that data is not lost or destroyed.

As you know, your duty to preserve happens when there is an anticipation of litigation, not just after the lawsuit is filed. Accordingly you should document in your Litigation Response Plan, preservation notices, what they should look like, and the workflow and process for sending them out.

Give details how you will be prepared to respond to the other side's demand for preserving data. To decrease the risk of claims and sanctions against your company, make sure to secure your backup tapes to prevent them from being destroyed.

Prepare and implement preservation procedures and policies, and document in the plan how you will verify that preservation actually happens.

There are many companies developing litigation hold software and services. You should review those as part of your Litigation Response Plan and determine whether or not to use litigation hold software and services at your company.