If you have received a legal hold notice from an organization that uses Everlaw, you can use the Legal Hold Custodian Portal to see every hold notice that organization has sent you in one place, check what still needs your attention, and complete any outstanding acknowledgements or questionnaires.
You do not need an Everlaw account to use the portal. You sign in with a one-time code sent to the email address your hold notices were sent to.
Read this article to learn how to:
- Open the custodian portal and sign in
- Find the notices that still need your attention
- Acknowledge a hold, reminder, or reissued notice
- Review notices you have already completed
Requirements
- Access to the custodian portal is verified by an emailed code, not by an Everlaw sign-in. The custodian portal is separate from any Everlaw account you may have. If you happen to have an Everlaw account, the portal is not connected to it in any way.
- The portal only covers one organization at a time. If you are a custodian for more than one organization, use the link in each organization's hold emails to reach that organization's portal. One portal never shows another organization's holds.
- You can see only your own notices. If you open an acknowledgement link that was sent to someone else, the portal shows an invalid link message rather than that person's notices.
Open the portal and sign in
Before you start, note that you can only sign in with the email address a hold notice was sent to. An address that is not on a hold in that organization does not receive a code.
To open the portal:
- In any legal hold email you have received from Everlaw, select Custodian Portal.
- Enter the email address the hold notice was sent to, then select Send authentication code.
- Check your inbox for an email containing your authentication code, then enter the code in the portal.
The portal opens upon authentication.
Find what needs your attention
The portal has two tabs:
- Action items lists the notices that still need something from you, such as an acknowledgement or an unfinished questionnaire.
- Complete lists the notices you have already acknowledged, notices that do not require an acknowledgement, and notices that have been released.
Each row shows the hold notice and matterit belongs to. On both tabs you can search by matter or hold notice name, and sort by the date of your last activity.
Respond to a notice
To respond to a notice on the Action items tab:
- Select the button at the end of its row.
The button tells you what is outstanding:- Acknowledge hold: You have not yet acknowledged this hold notice.
- Reacknowledge hold: The notice was edited and reissued, so your organization needs you to acknowledge the updated version.
- Acknowledge reminder: The hold is still active and your organization has asked you to confirm that you are still preserving the information covered by it.
- Resume: You started a questionnaire but did not finish it. Selecting Resume returns you to where you left off.
- Selecting the button opens the notice. Read it, complete the questionnaire if one is included, then select the acknowledgement checkbox and confirm. This is the same acknowledgement workflow you would reach from the link in the hold notice email.
- When you finish, you are returned to the portal and a confirmation banner appears at the top of the page.
Review completed notices
The Complete tab shows the notices you have finished with. For each one, you can see the date you acknowledged it or the date it was released, and you can reopen the original hold notice email to reread what it asked of you.
You can also filter this tab by status:
- Active: The hold is still in effect, and you are still expected to preserve the information it covers.
- Released: Your organization has ended the hold, and you no longer need to preserve information on its account.