How to Place a Litigation Hold in Microsoft 365: Step-by-Step Guide for Houston Businesses

• License requirements: eDiscovery Standard (included in M365 E3, Business Premium) or eDiscovery Premium (M365 E5)
• Admin role: You or your IT admin must have the eDiscovery Manager role assigned in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal
• Legal direction: Your legal counsel should define the scope — which custodians, what date ranges, and what keywords are relevant to the matter
• Documentation: Record who authorized the hold, when it was implemented, and what scope was defined. This documentation is essential if your preservation methodology is ever challenged.

1. Navigate to compliance.microsoft.com
2. In the left navigation, select eDiscovery → Standard (or Premium if licensed)
3. Click Create a case
4. Name the case with a clear, identifiable naming convention: [Matter Name] - [Year] (e.g., "Smith v. Acme Corp - 2026")
5. Add a description with the matter number, legal counsel contact, and hold authorization date

Custodians are the individuals whose data needs to be preserved. Your legal counsel defines this list.

1. Open your newly created case
2. Select the Holds tab
3. Click Create to start a new hold
4. Name the hold (e.g., "Smith v Acme - All Custodians")
5. Add the custodians by searching for their Exchange mailboxes
6. For each custodian, select data locations to hold: Exchange mailbox and OneDrive account

You can hold everything in the custodian's mailbox and OneDrive (broadest preservation) or apply conditions to narrow the scope:

• Date range: Only preserve items created or received within a specific period
• Keywords: Only preserve items containing specific terms (use carefully — narrow keyword holds risk missing relevant data)
• Sender/recipient: Only preserve communications with specific parties

Best practice for most litigation: Start with a broad hold (no conditions) on all identified custodians. You can narrow later if the volume is unmanageable, but it's much harder to explain why you used a narrow hold that missed relevant documents.

1. Review the hold configuration summary
2. Click Submit to enable the hold
3. The hold takes effect within 24-60 minutes across all specified data locations
4. Verify the hold status shows "On" for all custodians in the Holds tab

Create a hold confirmation record that includes:

• Date and time the hold was implemented
• Who authorized the hold (legal counsel name and matter reference)
• List of all custodians placed on hold
• Data locations covered (Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint sites)
• Any scope conditions applied (or confirmation that no conditions were used)
• Who implemented the hold (IT admin or MSP contact)

For Users

Nothing visible changes. Users can continue sending, receiving, and deleting email normally. Items they "delete" are preserved in a hidden Recoverable Items folder that the user cannot access. From their perspective, the mailbox works identically.

For IT

The hold increases mailbox size because deleted items are preserved instead of being purged. Monitor mailbox sizes for custodians on long-running holds. The Recoverable Items folder has a 100GB quota for mailboxes on hold (increased from the standard 30GB).

For Legal

The hold ensures preservation. It does NOT produce documents — that requires a separate eDiscovery search and export workflow. The hold is step one; collection and production are separate steps.

1. Waiting Too Long to Implement the Hold

The duty to preserve begins when litigation is reasonably anticipated — not when you're formally served. If you wait until the complaint arrives and relevant emails were auto-purged in the meantime, you have a spoliation problem.

2. Missing Data Sources

Holding only Exchange but missing OneDrive, SharePoint project sites, or Teams conversations. Modern business communication happens across multiple platforms — your hold must cover all of them.

3. Forgetting Departed Employees

If a custodian left the company before the hold was implemented, their mailbox may have been deleted. Retention policies that convert deleted mailboxes to "inactive mailboxes" solve this — but only if the policy was configured before the employee left.

4. Not Documenting the Hold

If you can't prove when the hold was implemented, what it covered, and who authorized it, opposing counsel will argue your preservation was inadequate. Document everything, contemporaneously.

5. Releasing the Hold Too Early

Holds should remain in place until your legal counsel confirms the matter is fully resolved — not just settled, but all appeal periods expired. Premature hold release can destroy data that's still subject to preservation obligations.

LayerLogix implements litigation holds and manages eDiscovery searches for Houston businesses — law firms, healthcare organizations, energy companies, and financial services firms. Whether you need a single hold placed today or ongoing eDiscovery management for an active litigation portfolio, we handle the technical execution while your legal team handles the law.

Learn about our eDiscovery services or call 713-571-2390 for immediate assistance.

Related: eDiscovery & Content Search Services | eDiscovery in M365 Guide | Compliance Hub | IT for Law Firms