Beyond Legal Hold: Why Bringing E-Discovery Technology In-House is Key

For the past decade, enterprises have increasingly incorporated legal technology—and e-discovery tools in particular—into their routine operations. Traditionally, organizations begin their in-house journey with legal hold technology.

Because legal holds require the preservation of potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI), they naturally kick off the e-discovery process. Managing these holds manually with spreadsheets across hundreds of custodians and legal matters is highly inefficient and vulnerable to human error.

However, enterprises with mature legal operations recognize that technology delivers efficiencies and cost savings that stretch far beyond mere preservation. In a recent survey of 250 in-house counsel and legal operations professionals, 63% of all respondents (and 90% of those at mature organizations) categorized legal technology as a “must-have.”

In a recent webinar titled “Don't Get Left Behind: Why Bringing E-discovery Tech In-House is Much More Than Legal Hold,” Linda Luperchio (Director of E-Discovery and Information Governance at Hanover Insurance) and Jenny Hamilton, Esq. (General Counsel at Exterro) discussed the strategic importance of expanding an organization's in-house e-discovery footprint, specifically around document review.

Starting with Legal Hold

The impetus to start with legal hold is simple. As Jenny Hamilton explains:

“It’s extremely difficult to outsource the preservation piece. Most companies who have some maturity at least have a solid E-Discovery tool and process instead of the spreadsheets from the old days. It’s very typical to own the legal hold and the collection process, and then start to outsource and transfer data out of the company when you get to the point of running analytics, processing data and putting it out for review.”  

The secret to moving past basic legal holds and incorporating advanced e-discovery workflows relies entirely on pre-established processes. Linda Luperchio notes:  

“The key is to have your program in place. So when the E-Discovery project walks in the door, that's not the time to figure it out. You want to know what you're going to use, how you're going to do it, who's going to do it for you, if it's not in-house, and even if it is in-house.”  

Identifying E-Discovery Gaps

Without an end-to-end strategy, organizations inevitably encounter major operational gaps. These usually manifest as problematic handoffs between internal IT and Legal teams, or complex transfers between in-house counsel, outside counsel, and legal service providers (LSPs).

When shifting between different point solutions (e.g., using one tool for preservation and an entirely separate one for processing or review), teams easily become trapped in silos. This lack of transparency and broken communication creates opportunities for severe security risks, data loss, and costly inefficiencies.

Unifying the E-Discovery Process

To overcome these silos, Hanover Insurance discovered that bringing the operational process under one cohesive team minimized errors while executing e-discovery faster and cheaper.

“I quickly realized at that point, we don't own the rights of [IT professionals], so I’d have to ask, ‘Can I please get this done? Could I please get this done today?’ So very quickly we brought our E-Discovery group into legal. So when we need an E-Discovery and it's a high priority, the people are right there... And that was an enormous change for us and a very, very positive change.”— Linda Luperchio  

Luperchio emphasizes that technology must align with this unified team structure:

“You need a solution that's going to have the ability to flow from one part of the E-Discovery process to the other—from your data map to your legal hold, from your legal hold over to your collection. Having them in different solutions just doesn't work well... Having review as part of that platform is a huge bonus, because we can go right from where we collected the data, drop it over into review, make batches, review the batches, and bring it back into the vault.”  

Securing E-Discovery In-House

Data security has shifted to become a primary concern for modern legal leaders, fundamentally impacting corporate liability. The massive surge in ransomware attacks over recent years has forced insurance providers to heavily scrutinize data controls—especially surrounding sensitive data collected during active litigation. Organizations remain fully accountable for the data security measures of any third-party vendor they transfer data to.

To mitigate this risk, corporate legal departments are actively deploying document review software internally, granting outside counsel secure access rather than shipping data out. According to the ACC-Exterro 2023 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel, over one-third of legal departments now leverage in-house document review software.

“When I say to outside counsel, ‘We have an end-to-end solution. You come in through a connector behind our firewall, so there's no security risk. You can use our application to review.’ Immediately I am their best friend, and they're more than happy to use our solution.”— Linda Luperchio  

The Bottom Line: Document Review is Essential

From an operational standpoint, bringing document review into a unified, in-house platform is a financial and strategic necessity. Fragmented data processing and delayed analysis pose distinct risks to time-sensitive legal matters.

For Hanover Insurance, the financial proof was undeniable. By shifting away from completely outsourced e-discovery models to an internal, unified software platform, they reduced an estimated $3 million external spend down to just $295,000—realizing a staggering $2.7 million in savings.

To learn more about optimizing your internal legal workflows, you can view the complete session in the Exterro resource library: Don't Get Left Behind: Why Bringing E-discovery Tech In-House is Much More Than Legal Hold.

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