Records Retention, Disposition, and Legal Hold
Retention and Disposition
This domain tests retention schedule design, disposition execution, and legal hold. The central idea is defensible disposal: destroy only when the retention period has expired, no hold applies, and the action is documented.
Core rules and concepts
- A retention schedule lists record series, description, retention period, trigger event, disposition action (destroy, transfer to archives, permanent), legal authority, and owner.
- Retention triggers matter: creation, supersession, fiscal year end, contract expiration, employee separation, case closure. A period such as seven years without a trigger is not a schedule.
- Legal hold suspends disposition for potentially relevant records. Steps include identifying scope, issuing written notice, preserving, tracking acknowledgments, collecting and indexing, releasing in writing, and resuming disposition.
- Holds override schedules. Keep the record until release, then apply the schedule and dispose promptly if the retention period has expired.
- Document disposition with certificates, destruction logs, method (cross-cut shred, secure erasure, certified vendor), date, series, and approver.
- Confidential destruction needs witnessed or certified processes; vendor contracts need security, indemnity, and audit rights.
Worked example
Contracts are retained seven years after expiration. An employee files a discrimination claim, so employment records for the department are placed on hold. Contract records are unrelated and may continue under schedule after confirming hold scope. Employment records whose retention expired remain preserved until release; after release, the records manager documents the release, rechecks for other holds, and disposes if expired. The reasoning is scope plus trigger plus hold status.
Traps
Destroying expired records without checking holds; counting retention from creation when the trigger is closure; keeping everything forever; no certificates; oral or unacknowledged hold notices; releasing a hold without a written record.