Document Preservation Demand Letter
(GA)

Summary

This template is a document preservation demand letter that attorneys can use to give an opposing party notice that it must preserve documents relevant to an anticipated or pending Georgia state court litigation. This template includes practical guidance, drafting notes, and alternate and optional clauses. The purpose of a document preservation letter is to ensure that an opposing party or third party retains relevant documents for future discovery. Once a party anticipates litigation, it must immediately suspend its routine document retention/destruction protocols and put a hold in place to ensure relevant documents are preserved. See Phillips v. Harmon, 297 Ga. 386, 396–98 (2015). You can send this letter in a pending litigation or in situations where you anticipate litigation to ensure your adversary preserves relevant documents or other evidence, including electronically stored information (ESI), that may be lost or destroyed before formal discovery can occur. For your letter to be effective, you must clearly specify the items or types of items the recipient must preserve. You may send the letter to the actual or potential adverse party or a third party in possession of the potentially relevant evidence. If you know the recipient is represented by counsel, send the letter to the recipient's attorney as well as the recipient. You should issue it to the other party or the other party's counsel at the earliest possible time. For a document retention checklist and policy, see Document Retention Policy Checklist (GA) and Document Retention Policy (GA). For an annotated litigation hold notice for counsel to send to employees of a corporate client, see Litigation Hold Notice (GA). For detailed discussions of document requests and discovery subpoenas, see Document Requests: Drafting and Serving RFPs (GA), Discovery Subpoenas: Drafting (GA), Discovery Subpoenas: Issuing and Serving (GA), and Discovery Subpoenas: Enforcing (GA). For a resource kit on document discovery in Georgia, see Written and Document Discovery Resource Kit (GA).