Legal Holds Directories Overview

On Everlaw, the recipients of legal hold notifications are known as data custodians or simply custodians. These custodians and their data are stored in organization-level directories, from which the custodians can be added to matters. If a custodian’s document is uploaded to an Everlaw database, the custodian is stored in the document’s searchable metadata.

When building custodian directories in Everlaw, you can add just the custodians to whom you plan to send legal holds, or you can upload entire directories of employees and select the employees that will receive hold notifications and become custodians later.

Requirements

Directories are stored at the organization-level. You must be a Legal Hold Organization Admin or Organization Admin to create or access them from the Organization home > Legal Hold > Directories page. 

Both Legal Hold Organization Admins and Organizations Admins can select from any directory in the organization when creating a new hold notice or data preservation. 

Users with Legal Hold Viewer permission can view, but cannot edit legal holds

Legal hold directory types

 Everlaw supports three types of directories:

• Workday integrated directories: Created through our Workday people integration. These directories can be regularly updated via scheduled exports configured in Workday.
• Microsoft Entra ID integrated directories: Created through an open connection with Microsoft Entra ID. These directories automatically update when changes are made to the linked directory in Microsoft.
• Static directories: Created by a CSV upload or manual data entry. All updates are manual.

Any combination of these directory types can coexist in the same organization.

Create and manage a directory

New directories can be created from the Organization home > Legal Holds > Directories page. All three directory types require a different set of steps to configure.

Instructions for how to set up and manage a directory are documented in the following directory type specific articles:  

• Microsoft Entra ID directory
• Workday directory
• Static directory

View directory custodians

To view all the people in a directory:

1. Go to Organization home > Legal Holds > Directories.
2. To view people:
   • In just one directory: Select the View button next to the directory name.
     
     This opens the individual directory’s page.
   • Across all directories: Select View all people.
     
     This opens the (All directories) page.

From these pages, you can:

• View a table list of all associated custodians
• Sort and filter the custodian table using the filter button in a given column
• Search for custodians by name or email using the search bar
• Open an employee’s details panel
• Select custodians and:
  • Add them to hold notices or data preservations
  • Release them from hold notices and data preservations
  • Export a report of them and their associated custodian properties
• View all legal holds that have custodians from that directory

View, edit, export, and delete custodians

To access a custodian’s information:

1. Go to your Organization Home > Legal Holds > Directories.
2. If you would like to narrow your custodian list to a single known directory, select the View button next to the directory. Otherwise, select View all people.
   A table of custodians appears.
3. Select a custodian from the table by clicking their row.
   This opens a side panel where you can view and edit the properties associated with that person. This side panel also contains information about the legal holds associated with that custodian, sorted by matter.
   
4. From here you can:

   • Edit the custodian’s information by selecting Edit
     

     Note

     Only static directories support full editing of custodians. Custodian data from Workday and Microsoft Entra ID must be edited from the integrated source directory. The only custodian value editable in Everlaw for integrated directory custodians is the Notes field.

   • View the custodian’s matters from the panel’s Legal Holds tab
     
   • Export the custodian’s information by selecting Export.
     
     Exports are formatted as zip files containing two CSVs. The first CSV includes information about the selected custodian's properties, and the second CSV contains information about the selected custodian's legal holds.
   • Delete the custodian from the matter by selecting Delete. This option is only if they have not yet been added to any legal holds.

Manage duplicate custodian entries

Sometimes you may end up with duplicate custodians: multiple instances of custodians associated with a single email address. You can manage these duplicates by selecting which one is active and which are inactive.

Here are two scenarios in which you might need to manage these duplicates:

• You have added the same individual as separate custodians into multiple static directories, and want to condense them back into one entry
• An email address is being reused for a new custodian, so you need to mark the prior custodian as inactive

To manage duplicate custodian entries:

1. Go to Organization home > Directories.
2. Select View all people to open a list of all custodians across all directories in your organization.
   

3. Select Manage people with duplicate emails.
   

   Note

   You can also open this page from any individual directory’s page by opening its three-dot menu and selecting Manage people with duplicate emails.

This opens the Manage people with duplicate emails wizard, which displays:

• All duplicate emails across your directories
• All custodian instances associated with each of those emails

Each custodian is either active (denoted by an ACTIVE flag), inactive (INACTIVE flag) or unmarked (no flag):

• Custodians with an ACTIVE flag have already been identified as the active custodian using that email address. This status could have assigned either:
  • Automatically: Custodians coming from integrated directories (Workday or Microsoft Entra ID) are automatically marked as active over any custodians listed in static directories.
  • Manually: A member of your team already flagged them as active
• Custodians with an INACTIVE flag have been identified as a custodian who is not actively using the address. They:
  • Cannot be issued hold notices or added to data preservations
  • Can only be tracked in external data preservations
  • Are automatically released from all hold notices.
• Custodians without a flag have not had a decision made about them.

4. To mark a custodian in an email group as ACTIVE, choose it from the list. This automatically sets all other custodians in the email group to INACTIVE.

5. When done, select Save.
   This opens a confirmation dialog.
6. Acknowledge the changes. Then select Flag to complete your updates.