# Synthetic AI preservation handoff

Fictional matter, custodians, dates and records. No real litigation hold, preservation action, rights-request decision or court finding is represented.

An invented contract dispute involves employee AI drafts and copied documents. The handoff identifies what legal and IT owners must resolve before deletion.

| Handoff field | Populated fictional scope | Owner or unresolved question |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Matter | MATTER-EX-30: invented dispute about delivery commitments. | Legal owner confirms the real issues and preservation duty. |
| Custodians | Fictional support lead and operations lead roles. | Identify actual custodians and relevant accounts; do not include every employee by default. |
| Time range | 1 June to 31 July 2026, invented scope. | Legal owner confirms and revisits the actual relevant period. |
| AI locations | Conversation TEST-CHAT-30 and uploaded file TEST-FILE-30. | Workspace owner identifies actual preservation/export capabilities and limitations. |
| Other copies | Draft copied to a shared document and local download. | Document/endpoint owners preserve the relevant copies and provenance as directed. |
| Deletion conflict | Routine expiry and proposed offboarding could remove relevant material. | Resolve with legal and IT before the affected deletion; no live setting is changed here. |
| Verification and release | No preservation action or release has occurred in the exercise. | Record actual checks and later authorised release instructions. |

## Review steps

- Obtain the matter-specific direction: Identify issues, custodians, time range and the relevant information before applying a real hold.
- Map every relevant location: Distinguish chat content, uploads, copied outputs, local files and activity evidence.
- Resolve deletion conflicts: Coordinate scheduled deletion, rights requests, verification and eventual release with the responsible legal and records owners.

## Draft teaching handoff

Matter: MATTER-EX-30, entirely fictional.
Issue: representations about delivery commitments in an invented contract dispute.
Custodians: support lead and operations lead roles.
Period: 1 June to 31 July 2026, invented.
Relevant locations: TEST-CHAT-30, TEST-FILE-30, shared draft TEST-DOC-30 and a local exported copy.
Conflict: routine expiry/offboarding may affect these hypothetical records.
Action requested in a real case: obtain authorised legal direction, identify available preservation methods, document completed actions and verify their scope.
Actions actually performed here: none.
Release: only after the responsible legal owner’s actual instruction.

This specimen is not a legal hold notice and does not change any user account or retention setting.

## Source and scope

Guide: https://aona.ai/resources/guides/employee-ai-chats-legal-hold/

Source check: 21 September 2026. General information, not professional approval or a completed control test.

- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_37
- EU GDPR: Regulation (EU) 2016/679: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng