Document Retention Policy and Litigation Hold Notice

To: Office of the President, Premier College

From: United States Department of Education

Copy: Office of Legal Counsel and All College Staff

Date: April 1, 2014

Subject: Notice of Litigation and Required Preservation of Electronic Data

Premier College recently received notice of litigation. Electronic data containing Premier College's computer systems is an important source of discovery and evidence in this cause. Premier College is required by law to take steps to ensure that all electronic data that is potentially relevant to this litigation is preserved. To satisfy Premier College's legal obligations, your assistance is necessary and required for the preservation of Premier College's electronic data, which includes, but is not limited to:

Directive Regarding Preservation of Electronic Data

Effective immediately, all personnel must preserve and retain any electronic information or data that is or may be relevant to this litigation. Electronic information or data must not be altered, deleted, or otherwise modified. Relevant electronic information or data includes, but is not limited to:

• E-mail

• Microsoft Office documents

• PDF files

• Digital image files (such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF)

• TXT files

• Databases

• Calendars

• Computer usage logs

• Internet usage files

Such electronic information or data may reside on workstations, laptops, network servers, removable media, smartphones and other mobile devices, voicemail, and backup tapes.

Any question about the relevance of a particular file, e-mail or other electronic data should be addressed to Premier College's attorney and resolved in favor of preserving and retaining information. Failure to preserve relevant information may result in significant penalties against Premier College.

At the network and systems administration level, this directive requires you to preserve and retain all potentially relevant files stored on servers and to refrain from doing any administrative work that has any potential to destroy potentially relevant files. In addition, all automatic deletion functions must be disabled on both the network and individual workstation level. All backup tapes must be preserved and pulled from recycling rotation. Forensically sound full images of mailboxes, hard drives, and network drives should be created upon receipt of this directive.

Sincerely,

United States Department of Education