Applying & Removing Legal Holds

You can apply a legal hold to a document in four ways:

  • A user applies a legal hold to a single document.
  • A user applies a legal hold to many documents using a bulk action.
  • An Admin “universally” applies a legal hold to all documents with field values that match the scope of the Legal Hold object record.
  • Vault automatically applies the hold to any documents that “enter” the scope of the legal hold after it enters Approved state. This can happen when users create a new document that matches the scope or when users edit field values on a document.

A legal hold will not apply to documents created or updated in Document Migration Mode. A Legal User or an Admin must reevaluate the Legal Hold object record after the document is created or updated.

Once you apply a legal hold to a document, a Gavel icon displays on the Doc Info page and the hovercard for that document.

To apply a legal hold to a specific document:

  1. Open the document.
  2. From the Actions menu, select Apply Legal Hold.
  3. Choose the legal hold to apply from the picklist of Legal Hold records in Approved state.
  4. Click Continue. The document is now under a legal hold.

To remove a legal hold from a specific document:

  1. Open the document.
  2. From the Actions menu, select Edit Legal Hold. In the Edit Legal Hold dialog, click the X next to a legal hold to remove its link to the document.
  3. Click OK.
  4. The document is no longer under the particular legal hold and if it is not under any other legal holds, users can delete it.

To change the legal holds applied to a document:

  1. Open the document.
  2. From the Actions menu, select Edit Legal Hold.
  3. Vault displays all approved legal holds applied to the document. Add and remove Legal Holds from the list as needed.
  4. Click OK.

Binders are subject to legal hold just like any other document. Once a binder is under a legal hold, users cannot delete it, but users can still modify its document fields or structure and add/remove documents.

Placing a binder under legal hold does not place all of the component documents under legal hold.

To use the “universal” apply action:

  1. Navigate to the Legal Hold object record.
  2. From the Actions menu, select Apply Legal Hold.
  3. Click Continue.
  4. This action is asynchronous, so you will receive a notification and email when the job finishes. After the job finishes, all documents within the scope are under legal hold.

You can apply and remove legal holds using bulk actions.

Type Permission Label Controls
Security Profile Object: Legal Hold Ability to read, create, edit, and delete records in the Legal Hold object.
Security Profile Application: Legal Hold: Apply Ability to apply a legal hold.
Security Profile Application: Legal Hold: Remove Ability to remove a legal hold.
Document Role View Document Ability to view the document; you must have this permission to apply or remove a legal hold from a document.