Lost a $46,000 contract dispute because I saved emails in a folder I never backed up

Ryan Burns · 2026-10-15T19:35:03.69269+00:00

Two weeks ago our team was deposing a former vendor and I couldn't produce a single email thread from the 2022 negotiations. I had been archiving everything in a local Outlook folder on my work laptop, which got wiped during an IT refresh back in March. Opposing counsel waved a printout of an email I supposedly sent and I just sat there with nothing. That was the moment it hit me that our whole legal hold process was basically me dragging files around by hand. How are you all handling email retention for active matters, is there a tool that actually talks to Outlook or do you just tell people to CC legal?

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Lost a $46,000 contract dispute because I saved emails in a folder I never backed up | Corporate Litigation - Topic Shares