Litigation Readiness: Building an eDiscovery Plan Before You Need One

A 6:47 a.m. email arrives: "We've been served."

Panic instantly grips the in-house legal team.

Where’s the data? Who has the Slack exports? Has anyone secured the shared Google Drive folder before HR cuts off the former employee's access?

All good questions…

…that should’ve been asked a lot sooner. 

Litigation moves fast. Courts don’t wait for organizations to get their digital house in order. That’s why smart law firms are urging their clients, and preparing their own internal systems, to develop litigation readiness plans that include detailed eDiscovery protocols before the subpoenas arrive.

Here’s what that looks like, and why it matters.

The Cost of Being Unprepared

When eDiscovery isn't planned for in advance, the scramble is expensive. Missed preservation opportunities can lead to sanctions. Inefficient data collection can drive up review costs. And worst of all, critical evidence might be lost or become inadmissible.

In one case, a midsize healthcare provider was hit with a class action lawsuit over data privacy violations. The provider had no centralized retention policy, and employees stored sensitive files across multiple personal devices and cloud accounts. It took weeks just to map where the relevant data might live and the opposing side filed a motion for spoliation before discovery even began.

Compare that to a client who’s prepared: With a documented data map, clear roles, and a repeatable preservation process, legal holds are triggered immediately, and responsive data is collected efficiently and defensibly.

What Litigation Readiness Actually Looks Like

Litigation readiness isn’t a binder on a shelf. It’s a living, repeatable process with three key components:

• Data Mapping
  Know where your organization’s data lives. That includes email systems, cloud storage, collaboration tools (Slack, Teams), CRM platforms, and employee devices. A regularly updated data map helps narrow the scope of future eDiscovery and prevents missed sources.
  
  
• Retention Policies
  Set clear retention and deletion policies—and follow them. Courts look favorably on organizations with documented, consistently applied policies. Don’t assume “delete everything after 90 days” is a strategy. That approach can backfire when data suddenly becomes relevant in litigation.
  
  
• Legal Hold Procedures
  Have a defined process to issue, track, and monitor legal holds. Automating this process reduces the risk of noncompliance and keeps custodians accountable. Tools like Microsoft Purview, Exterro, or Zapproved can streamline legal hold notices and acknowledgments.

Why Law Firms Need Their Own Plan, Too

It’s not just clients who need to prepare. Law firms themselves often store sensitive and discoverable data including client communications, shared work product, internal notes, often across multiple systems. A rogue associate with synced notes on a personal device could become an unexpected source of data exposure.

In a recent breach investigation, a law firm was found to have no centralized policy for how discovery data was stored or accessed post-case. When a former paralegal was subpoenaed in a related matter, they still had access to old client materials on their laptop, raising questions about privilege and data governance.

Law firms that handle litigation must practice what they preach: apply legal holds internally, document collection workflows, and regularly audit data retention practices.

What Happens When You're Ready

When litigation hits a prepared organization, everything changes:

• Preservation is swift and defensible.
• Custodians are identified and notified within hours.
• Only relevant data is collected, cutting review costs.
• The legal team focuses on strategy—not panic.

For example, a software company had built a litigation readiness plan after a prior incident. When hit with a patent dispute two years later, they had data maps, preservation policies, and legal hold workflows ready. As a result, the discovery process wrapped in a fraction of the time and at a third of the cost compared to their previous case.

Readiness doesn’t just protect against loss. It saves time, money, and your client’s credibility.

Start Before You Need To

Building a litigation readiness plan isn’t just an IT project. It’s a legal risk strategy. And the best time to start is when there’s no deadline looming.

At Blackfish Intelligence, we help law firms and their clients assess their current eDiscovery posture, identify weak points, and design readiness plans that hold up under pressure—and in court.

Schedule a Readiness Review

Not sure if your plan is defensible? Don’t wait for litigation to find out.

Schedule a free consultation with Blackfish Intelligence and get a practical roadmap for getting ahead of the next subpoena.