Services
eDiscovery & Legal Holds
Organizations risk significant penalties when they fail to timely and properly preserve information relating to the subject matter of legal holds, including monetary penalties, adverse inference instructions, default judgments, and dismissals. Fey LLC helps organizations get it right.
Litigation Risk: Failure to properly issue, manage, and enforce legal holds can result in sanctions, adverse inference jury instructions, default judgments, or case dismissals.
End-to-End eDiscovery & Legal Hold Support
With 20+ years of litigation experience, including prior service as an Honor's Program attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Laura Clark Fey brings deep practical expertise to eDiscovery and legal hold matters.
- Risk assessments and litigation readiness evaluations
- Legal hold program design and governance structure implementation
- ESI data mapping and policy development
- Employee training on legal hold obligations
- Discovery assistance and motion support
- eDiscovery software selection guidance
- 30(b)(6) deposition preparation
- Cross-border data privacy navigation in litigation
Proactive vs. reactive
The best time to build your legal hold program is before litigation strikes. Fey LLC helps organizations develop defensible, scalable programs that reduce risk and costs when litigation arises.
Cross-border complexity
Multinational organizations face particular challenges at the intersection of U.S. litigation hold obligations and EU data protection law. Fey LLC navigates this complexity with deep expertise in both areas.
Facing litigation or building your program?
Contact us for a confidential consultation.
Contact Fey LLCFrequently asked questions
What does a well-designed legal hold program look like?
A defensible legal hold program defines who is responsible for issuing holds, how custodians and data sources are identified, and how holds are communicated, tracked, and released. It includes clear triggers for the duty to preserve and documentation to demonstrate good-faith compliance. Fey LLC designs scalable legal hold programs with the governance structure and workflows needed to withstand scrutiny in litigation.
Why is ESI data mapping important for eDiscovery?
Electronically stored information lives in many places, email, collaboration platforms, mobile devices, cloud apps, and backups, and you cannot preserve or produce what you cannot locate. An ESI data map inventories these sources, their custodians, and their retention settings so holds and collections are complete and proportionate. Fey LLC helps organizations build and maintain data maps that make discovery faster, more defensible, and less costly.
What does it mean to be litigation ready, and how do we get there?
Litigation readiness means having the policies, data maps, and hold procedures in place before a dispute arises, so preservation can begin immediately and defensibly. Organizations that wait until litigation strikes face higher costs and greater sanctions risk. Fey LLC conducts litigation readiness evaluations and helps clients close gaps so they can respond quickly and confidently when claims emerge.
How do we handle eDiscovery when data is located in other countries?
Cross-border discovery creates tension between U.S. preservation and production obligations and foreign data protection laws such as the GDPR, which restrict the transfer and processing of personal data. Getting this wrong can expose an organization to regulatory penalties abroad or sanctions at home. Fey LLC, with deep expertise in both litigation and international privacy law, helps clients navigate this complexity and structure compliant cross-border discovery.
What are the consequences of failing to preserve information properly?
Failure to timely and properly preserve relevant information can lead to monetary sanctions, adverse inference jury instructions, default judgments, or case dismissals. Courts increasingly expect organizations to demonstrate reasonable, good-faith preservation efforts. Fey LLC helps clients build and document programs that reduce the risk of spoliation and the severe penalties that can follow.