Overview
Legal Holds allows organization administrators to preserve user-generated content when required for litigation, regulatory investigations, or compliance obligations by exempting specific users from automatic data retention policies.
When a user is placed on legal hold:
Their content is exempt from automatic data retention policies
Daily snapshots preserve content created or modified by that user
Preserved data is stored in secure, immutable storage
The hold operates in the background without disrupting user workflows
Legal Holds operates at the user level and does not apply on a per-project basis.
Who can use Legal Holds
Eligibility: Only organization administrators and auditors can create, edit and delete Legal Holds
Typical users: Legal Hold information is usually required and reviewed by information security teams, legal operations professionals, and risk or compliance officers
Availability: Available to enterprise clients
When to use Legal Holds
Use Legal Holds when specific users’ content must be preserved beyond standard retention rules.
Common scenarios include:
Litigation holds
When an employee is involved in active or anticipated litigation and their documents must not be deletedRegulatory investigations
When content must be preserved for review by regulatory authoritiesInternal investigations
When preserving communications and documents during compliance or HR investigationsRisk mitigation
When legal or compliance teams need to temporarily suspend automated deletion policies for specific individuals
Legal Holds ensures preservation while allowing the rest of your organization’s retention policies to operate normally.
How Legal Holds work
When a legal hold is activated:
A scheduled job runs once daily
The system captures incremental snapshots of content created or modified since the last snapshot
Content is copied to a dedicated legal hold storage container
Metadata is preserved alongside the stored content
Snapshots are not real-time. Preservation occurs once per day.
Legal Holds preserves content created or modified by users on hold, including:
Documents
AI conversation threads
Workflows
Playbooks
Tabular reviews
Preservation applies only to users assigned to the hold.
Create and manage Legal Holds
Create and activate a hold
Go to Admin → Legal Holds
Click Create Legal Hold.
Enter a name and description.
Add the users who should be placed on hold.
Activate the hold.
Once activated, daily preservation begins automatically.
Manage an existing hold
Within the Admin settings, administrators can:
View active and released holds
Add or remove users from a hold
Monitor snapshot status and preservation activity
Release a hold (stop capturing new snapshots while retaining preserved data)
Delete a hold (permanently remove all preserved content)
Deleting a legal hold cannot be undone. Once deleted all data is lost.
Data security and storage
Legal Holds is designed to ensure preserved content is secure, isolated, and immutable.
Storage and immutability
Legal hold data is stored in Azure Blob Storage
Each legal hold receives a dedicated, immutable storage container
Azure immutability policies prevent modification or deletion of preserved content while the hold is active
Encryption and isolation
All preserved content is encrypted at rest
Data is stored in organization-specific containers, ensuring isolation between organizations
Access controls and audit logging
Only organization administrators can manage legal holds
All legal hold actions generate audit log entries, including:
Resource identifier
Operation performed
Success or denial status
Acting user identity
Timestamp
Security monitoring tracks authentication failures, snapshot errors, storage access errors, and immutability policy violations.
For additional details, see the Legal Holds Security White Paper.
Limitations
Legal Holds operates at the user level, not the project level.
Snapshots occur once daily and are not real-time.
Only organization administrators can create or manage legal holds.
Releasing a hold stops future snapshots but retains all previously preserved data.
Deleting a hold permanently removes preserved content and cannot be reversed.
Troubleshooting
Snapshot operation failed
Snapshots may fail due to temporary storage issues. The system includes automatic retry mechanisms to resolve transient failures. If failures persist, review error details in the admin panel and contact Support.
A user does not appear in the legal hold selection list
Confirm the user is a member of your organization
Ensure the user has signed in to the platform at least once
Only organization members can be placed on legal hold
Unable to delete a legal hold
Confirm you have Organization Administrator permissions
Deleting a legal hold permanently removes preserved content and cannot be undone
FAQ
What types of content are preserved under a legal hold?
All content created or modified by users on legal hold is preserved, including documents, AI conversation threads, workflows, playbooks, and tabular reviews.
Does Legal Holds prevent users from working normally?
No. Legal Holds runs in the background and does not affect normal user workflows.
How often is data preserved?
Snapshots run once per day. Each snapshot captures content created or modified since the previous run.
What happens when I release a legal hold?
Releasing a hold stops future snapshots. Previously preserved data remains stored.
What happens when I delete a legal hold?
Deleting a legal hold permanently removes all preserved content associated with that hold. This action cannot be undone.
Can preserved data be exported?
Preserved content can be exported if required for legal review. Contact your Legora account team for assistance with retrieval.