The Senior Manager of Litigation Hold & eDiscovery serves as the firm's lead technical expert and owner of the enterprise litigation hold and eDiscovery program. This role is responsible for overseeing the technology, processes, controls, and governance that support the defensible preservation, collection, processing, review, production, and release of electronically stored information across Microsoft 365 and other firm data sources.
Working closely with Legal, Risk, Information Security, HR, Records Management, and other key stakeholders, the Senior Manager ensures reliable, audit-ready, and legally defensible execution of litigation hold and eDiscovery activities. This position leads continuous improvement of the firm's eDiscovery capabilities, maintains critical platform integrations and interoperability, safeguards chain of custody, and provides technical documentation and support for audits, investigations, and legal proceedings.
While Legal retains authority over legal strategy, privilege determinations, and matter scope, this role serves as the primary technical leader responsible for execution, documentation, and operational excellence.
What You Will Do:
- Leads case intake and technical matter setup, including unique identifiers, authorized scope, custodians, data sources, search parameters, deadlines, access restrictions, conflicts, and approvals.
- Administer the complete legal-hold lifecycle: configure matters; issue and track notices; manage acknowledgments, reminders, escalations, amendments, custodians, preservation locations, and releases; and verify that hold actions completed successfully.
- Implement, validate, monitor, and document mailbox and Microsoft Teams preservation, including associated Exchange mailboxes, Microsoft 365 Groups, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and other content locations designated by Legal.
- Perform defensible identification and collection of electronically stored information (ESI) using approved connectors, APIs, export utilities, scripts, and forensic methods; preserve source metadata and document chain of custody.
- Leads collection quality assurance, including source-to-output reconciliation, exception handling, failed-location remediation, checksum/hash validation where supported, collection manifests, timestamps, and documented sign-off.
- Administer ingestion, processing, deduplication, indexing, search, analytics, email threading, review workspaces, permissions, coding layouts, redaction workflows, privilege workflows, productions, Bates numbering, load files, and export packages as supported by the selected platform.
- Maintain platform configuration, upgrades, release testing, system health, audit logs, role-based access, and segregation of duties in partnership with infrastructure and security teams.
- Design, maintain, and troubleshoot integrations with Microsoft Purview, Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Entra ID, HR identity sources, file services, records repositories, case-management tools, and approved third-party systems.
- Develop automation and PowerShell/API-based controls for repeatable administration, validation, exception reporting, evidence capture, and tenant-wide reconciliation of cases, holds, custodians, and data locations.
- Conduct periodic hold reconciliations and independent quality checks to confirm that authorized custodians and repositories remain preserved, including employee transfer, leave, separation, merger, acquisition, and account-deprovisioning events.
- Maintain standard operating procedures, runbooks, data maps, system diagrams, integration inventories, query logs, collection protocols, chain-of-custody records, evidence packages, decision records, and matter closeout documentation.
- Create operational and executive reporting on matter status, hold status, acknowledgment and escalation activity, preservation exceptions, collection completeness, processing volumes, aging, deadlines, access, releases, and control performance.
- Partner with Legal on search-term testing, sampling, proportionality, collection strategy, production specifications, privilege protections, and technical explanations, without making legal conclusions or substituting for counsel.
- Coordinate secure transfer of ESI to internal reviewers, outside counsel, forensic providers, regulators, or other authorized recipients using approved encryption, access, logging, and retention controls.
- Provide declarations, affidavits, deposition or hearing support, and factual testimony regarding systems, searches, preservation, collection, processing, chain of custody, and standard procedures when directed by counsel; maintain readiness to explain and reproduce work performed.
- Lead incident response for missed, incomplete, or failed holds and collections; preserve evidence, perform root-cause analysis, notify appropriate stakeholders, execute corrective actions, and document lessons learned.
- Assess vendors and platform capabilities, support contracting and licensing, manage technical support relationships, validate product changes, and recommend enhancements based on legal, risk, security, privacy, and operational requirements.
- Protect confidential, privileged, personal, regulated, and client information through least privilege, need-to-know access, secure handling, defensible retention, and documented destruction or release only upon authorized direction.
- Serve as the escalation point and coach for administrators and technical contributors; provide training and tabletop exercises for Legal, Risk, HR, IT, Records, and application teams.
- Stay current on eDiscovery practices, Microsoft 365 data architecture, collaboration data, cloud evidence, AI-assisted review, privacy obligations, court expectations, and emerging sources of ESI.
Minimum Qualifications:
- 8+ years of progressively responsible experience in eDiscovery, litigation support, legal technology, digital forensics, Microsoft compliance, enterprise data collection, or a related field.
- Demonstrated experience supporting sensitive internal investigations, subpoenas, regulatory requests, civil litigation, employment matters, or other high-risk matters within a large or highly regulated organization.
- Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) designation from ACEDS or a comparable vendor-neutral eDiscovery certification.
- Advanced administrator certification for a leading eDiscovery platform, such as Relativity Certified Administrator (RCA), or an equivalent credential from Everlaw, Exterro, Nuix, or another approved provider.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 10+ years of relevant experience, including ownership of enterprise litigation hold operations, complex multi-source collections, platform administration, system integrations, and litigation support activities.
- Experience administering Microsoft compliance technologies, including information protection, records management, and eDiscovery solutions, supported by relevant Microsoft certifications or applied skills credentials.
- Digital forensics certification, such as EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE), GIAC Certified Forensic Examiner (GCFE), Certified Forensic Computer Examiner (CFCE), or a comparable credential.
- Active Notary Public commission and willingness to execute sworn declarations, affidavits, certifications, or acknowledgments, as appropriate and at the direction of counsel.
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