Legal Holds & Public-Records Requests

Two compliance workflows that most departments meet sooner or later: preserving records for litigation, an investigation or a records request, and producing records in response to a public-records (FOIA / state sunshine law) request with the right redactions and a statutory clock.

Preservation (legal) holds

Records → Legal holds (requires Manage legal holds). A hold prevents retention purge and voiding for its scope. A hold on a record also protects its incident analysis and evidence; releasing a disclosure does not release the hold.

Place preservation hold:

Field	Notes
Scope	A specific record identifier, or a definition scope with an optional preserved period (UTC; leave both dates blank for every date), optionally including the NERIS incident and analysis.
Basis for the hold	Litigation, Investigation, Public records request, Other.
Authority or case reference / Preservation instructions	Recorded with the hold.

Holds list who placed and released them; Release hold requires the authority and reason for release.

Records requests (disclosures)

Records → Manage → Records requests (requires Manage record disclosures). A request carries a statutory clock, so it is tracked here rather than answered ad hoc.

Workflow

1. Log a records request — reference, requester name / organisation / contact details, received on, statutory due date (blank uses the department's clock), what was asked for (scope narrative).
2. Save the scope — the records the request resolves to (a preview lists them). The scope freezes once anything has been produced against it.
3. Review the records with a redaction profile: Standard (withhold restricted content), No personal identifiers (also withhold participant identities) or Full disclosure. Attachments can be reviewed with the same profile.
4. Produce — creates an immutable, checksummed production artifact (zip or PDF). A later amendment cannot change what was produced; Verify the checksum confirms a stored production is intact.
5. Release — the release approver (department setting) releases the production to the requester and the release is recorded.
6. Close the request with a reason.

The dashboard counts open and overdue requests. Requester identity can be restricted so that only the disclosure officer sees it.

Disclosure defaults

In Records settings: statutory response clock (days), default redaction profile and release approver (a member, or any department administrator).

Setup examples

Department	Notes
US municipal fire / EMS	Clock per state law (e.g. 10 business days); default profile No personal identifiers for EMS; city attorney as release approver.
Canadian department	Clock per provincial FOI act (30 days); Standard profile.
Private company	Use the workflow for subpoenas and insurer requests; Full disclosure reserved for counsel.

Technical reference

Item	Value
Routes	/User/RecordLegalHolds/Index?recordId=, /User/Disclosures/{Index,Details,Review,ReviewAttachment,Download}
Model	RmsLegalHold, RmsDisclosure, RmsDisclosureProduction
Permissions	ManageRecordLegalHold (66), ManageRecordDisclosures (65), ShareRecordsExternally (58) for release
Retention	Retention purge skips any record under an active hold.