Legal Hold Pro: Easily Managing Legal Hold Notification

by JulieLaboe

“Fear of the unknown” – a tool used by those who constantly bombard you with the many articles, seminars and/or CLEs telling you that you need to implement “Legal” or “Litigation” holds at the first sign of possible litigation.  Fear is the proper reaction when you hear the horror stories involving those “Federal Rules” and the consequences that you could face.  But has anyone told you how to implement a legal hold and notify those custodians who are affected?  Well finally a product has been introduced that puts the tools for legal hold notification in the hands of in-house counsel making it possible for you to be self-sufficient. The product is Legal Hold Pro™ and yes, it’s reasonably priced.

Legal Hold Pro is a product from Zapproved™, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company based in Portland, Oregon, with a platform that adds accountability to business communication. Legal Hold Pro is the first cloud-based system for managing custodian notification and compliance for legal holds.

Legal Hold Pro is the fastest and simplest way to manage the legal hold notification and compliance process. You can initiate a legal hold for as little as $175 per month with no long term contracts and it’s scalable. The on-demand service streamlines the practice of issuing legal holds and reduces exposure via an automated and defensible process essentially “shifting the risk” so you don’t have to defend the process. Legal Hold Pro might sound too simple to be useful, but you’ll quickly learn that the simplicity is its strength. Legal Hold Pro operates in “the cloud” (i.e. on the web) with no software to install and is so easy to use that it doesn’t require training!

• Start a Legal Hold - Include custodians, the pertinent matter name, set a due date for custodians to respond by, include the contents of the legal hold notice, and attach any related documents. You can even copy individuals on the notification that need to know what’s going on but are not directly affected by the hold.
• Notify Custodians - Custodians will receive a formatted email requiring them to take action. You can send manual reminders and Legal Hold Pro will send automatic notices as each due date approaches.
• Manage Compliance - The Legal Hold Center will display the current status of all outstanding legal holds. The system tracks interactions with custodians by keeping records of conversations and interviews as well as electronic responses to notifications. This feature is also helpful for tracking those employees who may be operating in bad faith and want to play the game of “I didn’t know”. You can easily see and produce the number of times a custodian has been notified of a hold and was required to take action but did not.
• Reissue the Legal Hold - Send periodic reminders and update a legal hold or even provide legal hold release instructions. All versions are tracked by the system.
• Produce an Audit Trail - Since all the information is saved in a single system, an audit trail can be prepared rapidly as a printed document or forwarded in an email. When the legal hold is no longer necessary, the record will be securely archived by Legal Hold Pro.

About Legal Hold Pro and Zapproved

Zapproved began in February 2008 by developing a platform that targets specific pain points in businesses around compliance workflows and team collaboration. Their tools are “cloud-based” and use the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The tools manage accountability in business communications. Their intuitive apps streamline processes and can be adopted instantly because no training or IT support are required. Legal Hold Pro, a product developed by Zapproved is an on-demand tool for managing litigation hold notification and compliance.

Legal Hold Pro is managed by Monica Enand, President and CEO. Monica has more than 16 years of software development experience with blue-chip companies such as Intel Corporation and IBM. From 2004 to 2006, she oversaw global software development teams for IBM in the U.S., Canada and India where she implemented Web tools that increased sales by $40 million in one year.

Recently, Legal Hold Pro added John Christiansen as their Vice President of Sales.

Demonstrating the strength of Zapproved and Legal Hold Pro is their stellar Board of Directors including:

• Steve Wynne, founding partner of Ater Wynne LLP, a leading Pacific Northwest law firm. In addition to practicing law, he has held numerous executive positions, including CEO of Adidas America Inc. (1995- 2000), Chairman and CEO of eteamz.com (2000-2001), Acting VP of FLIR Systems (2002-2003), and President and CEO of Sports Brands International (2004-2007). Steve currently serves on the Board of Directors of Planar Systems and FLIR Systems.
• Steve Sharp is the Chair of Triquint Semiconductor, a leading RF products manufacturer and foundry services provider, which he joined in 1991 as president and CEO. Previously, he was an executive with venture capital-financed semiconductor companies, including being the founder of Power Integrations, Inc. and Silicon Architects, Inc. which was acquired by Synopsys, Inc. Steve is a director of Power Integrations, Inc. He received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, a M.S. degree in Engineering Science from California Institute of Technology and a M.B.A. from Stanford University.
• Randy Steck is the Principal in Steck Consulting, a consulting firm helping organizations to deliver on-time and on-target in highly complex, leading edge environments. Prior to this, Randy was the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stexar Corporation, a company developing cutting edge DTV technology. Randy retired as Vice President/General Manager from Intel Corporation in July 2001 after leading development of more than 15 microprocessor programs, including the P6, Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron and Pentium 4 product lines.
• Allen Alley currently serves as the Chairman of Pixelworks, a company he founded and led as CEO and President between 1997 and 2006, including taking the company public in 2000. Most recently, Allen worked in the Office of the Governor of Oregon as Deputy Chief of Staff. Before Pixelworks, he was an Executive VP for InFocus Corp., a general partner at Battery Ventures, as well as working in marketing for Computervision and engineering for Boeing and Ford.

Contact Legal Hold Pro at:

John Christiansen, Vice President of Sales

503-539-6228

john@zapproved.com

www.legalholdpro.com 

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