Email is disclosed in almost every commercial dispute and a large share of employment and family matters. It is also the category most vulnerable to well intentioned interference: rules deleting messages, IT clearing accounts, ex employees taking mailboxes with them.
The first steps on any matter with email in issue
- Issue a written litigation hold to the client, IT and any relevant third party providers.
- Suspend automatic deletion rules on the affected mailboxes.
- Take a forensic export of the mailbox in its native format, not a PDF print.
- Preserve associated calendar, contacts and mailbox rules; these often carry the story.
What proper email evidence looks like
Native format exports with full headers, hash verified. Header analysis to check routing, timestamps and authentication results. Any print or forward is a copy of a copy; it is not the evidence.