What is the difference between holding email under a litigation hold and retaining it under a records schedule?

Both a litigation hold and a records schedule tell you to keep email for a period of time, but they answer very different questions and follow different rules. Understanding the distinction is essential for any organization that manages email and messaging at scale.

Retention under a records schedule

A records schedule is the routine, proactive policy that governs how long email is kept and what happens when that period ends. It is built around the content and value of the message:

• It assigns a retention period based on the business, legal, fiscal, or historical purpose the email serves.
• It applies to every message in a category, regardless of whether any dispute exists.
• It authorizes disposition when the period expires, meaning the email is either destroyed under policy or transferred to permanent archival custody.

The defining feature of a schedule is that it permits defensible deletion. Disposing of email at the scheduled time is a normal, lawful part of the records lifecycle.

A litigation hold

A litigation hold (also called a legal hold or preservation obligation) is a reactive, exception-based duty triggered when litigation, an audit, or an investigation is reasonably anticipated. Its purpose is to suspend normal disposition so that potentially relevant evidence is not lost.

• It is scoped to the people, custodians, and subject matter relevant to a specific matter, not to a content category.
• It overrides the records schedule. While a hold is in effect, email that would otherwise be eligible for destruction must be preserved.
• It lasts as long as the matter and the preservation duty continue, then is released, after which normal scheduling resumes.

Failing to honor a hold can lead to claims of spoliation and court sanctions.

How they interact

The schedule is the default rhythm; the hold is a temporary pause button.

	Records schedule	Litigation hold
Nature	Routine, ongoing	Triggered, situational
Basis	Content value and legal requirement	Anticipated dispute
Effect	Permits disposition	Suspends disposition

When the two conflict, the hold always wins for the affected records. Sound information governance keeps both working together: a defensible schedule that disposes of email on time, and a reliable hold process that freezes the right messages the moment a preservation duty arises.