You’ve got two days to respond to an eDiscovery request. Emails are scattered across inboxes, Teams chats, and random SharePoint folders. Sounds familiar?
For legal teams, email isn’t just a communication tool—it’s discoverable evidence. Microsoft 365 offers powerful tools to retain and retrieve emails, but only if you set them up the right way.
Here’s how to stay ahead of audits and avoid common mistakes.
Why Legal Teams Need Bulletproof Email Archiving
Every email could matter in a legal context. You need to:
- Preserve records for litigation or investigations
- Prove defensible handling of sensitive data
- Comply with regulations like GDPR, FINRA, HIPAA, or FOIA
- Avoid last-minute panic during eDiscovery
Yet, many legal teams still rely on scattered processes—or worse, manual filing—which puts compliance and efficiency at risk.
Best Practices That Actually Work
1. Build Retention Rules That Match Legal Risk
Microsoft 365 lets you apply retention labels and policies by user, content, or activity. Customize retention to fit legal requirements—not just IT preferences.
2. Immediate Classification—Don’t Rely on Memory
Emails should be tagged with the right case, client, or matter ID the moment they’re filed. With harmon.ie, metadata is applied as users drag and drop emails into SharePoint—all inside Outlook. This reduces human error and ensures compliance.
3. Put Holds in Place Before You Need Them
Litigation holds prevent deletion—but only if applied on time. Set them proactively and document your process. Microsoft 365 makes it easy to place users or teams on legal hold, preserving mailbox content for eDiscovery.
4. Make Discovery Simple and Fast
An archiving system is useless if legal teams can’t search it quickly. Use tools that let you locate communications by keyword, client, or custodian—all within your Microsoft 365 environment.
Where harmon.ie Closes the Gaps
harmon.ie brings your email archiving workflow into Outlook, where legal teams already work.
- Drag-and-drop filing to SharePoint and Teams
- Metadata and retention labels applied instantly
- Search across Microsoft 365 without switching apps
- Keeps data secured inside your tenant—no third-party storage
You stay compliant, organized, and discovery-ready, all without extra training or app switching.
What Legal Teams Say
“harmon.ie allows our legal team to ‘live’ in Outlook, which is where our deals are negotiated and worked through. This is a product that I use every single day, all day. It’s made our lives so much easier.”
— John S. Moody Sr., Managing Attorney, Moody Law Group (See Moody Law Group case study)
“We saw that a harmon.ie and SharePoint solution covers 95% or almost 100% of our needs… it’s much more cost efficient than a specialized third-party solution.“
— Christian Steier, Legal Digital Officer at REHAU Group (See REHAU Group case study)
Bottom Line
Legal email archiving isn’t optional. It’s a necessity. The faster you modernize your retention strategy, the more confident you’ll feel when the next audit or subpoena hits your inbox.
Don’t just store emails. Make them searchable, structured, and legally sound—with harmon.ie.
