The Internal Investigation Toolkit
A Free, Editable Internal Investigation Workbook with Practical Guidance for Preserving Silently, Logging Decisions, and Reporting Defensibly.
This practical workbook gives legal, HR, compliance, and eDiscovery professionals one document to run a matter from the day the allegation arrives. It matches response depth to the allegation, sequences silent preservation before anyone is notified, logs every decision as it is made, and structures a report that holds up when a regulator, a board, or a plaintiffs' firm reads it years later.
What's Inside It
- An Allegation Tier Matrix That Matches Response Depth to the Allegation
- A First 72 Hours Checklist Covering Silent Holds and Suspended Auto-Deletion
- A Preservation State Register for Email, Chat, Cloud, Devices, and AI Tools
- A Decision Log Pre-Loaded With the Ten Decisions Every Investigation Forces
- A Nine-Stage Checklist Defining What Done Looks Like at Each Stage
- The Upjohn Admonition Elements to Cover at the Start of Every Interview
- A Seven-Section Report Structure With a Findings and Evidence Table
Get your free copy
Instant, 100% confidential download. Your information is never shared, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
By downloading, you agree to Venio's Privacy Policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Venio's eDiscovery platform
1. Who Is This Toolkit for?
This toolkit is designed for in-house legal teams, HR and compliance leads, eDiscovery managers, litigation support professionals, legal operations teams, and outside counsel responsible for running or supporting a corporate internal investigation.
2. Can I Use This Toolkit in Real Matters?
Yes. It is built as a practical documentation aid that captures the decisions, preservation states, and findings an investigation record needs. Because privilege posture and notification obligations vary by jurisdiction and matter, use it alongside your organization's procedures and counsel's guidance.
3. Why Does the Workbook Preserve Before It Notifies?
A standard hold notice tells the subject exactly what you are looking at, and can trigger the very deletion it exists to prevent. Silent, in-place holds suspend deletion at the system level without notice. The workbook records when and why notification was eventually given.
4. When Does the Duty to Preserve Begin in an Investigation?
When litigation becomes reasonably foreseeable, which is frequently the moment a credible allegation arrives. In Zubulake, the duty attached while the dispute was still internal, months before any filing. The workbook opens with a dated decision record for that reason.
5. Does It Cover Personal Devices?
Yes. Work data on a personal device can still sit within the company's possession, custody, or control under FRCP 34. The workbook prompts for written authorization scoped to the matter, and for documenting what you chose not to collect.
6. How Is This Different From Other Investigation Templates?
Most templates are a report shell. This workbook covers the work before the report, the preservation register and the decision log, where investigations actually fail. It pairs with the Custodian Interview Workbook, which runs the individual sessions this one only sequences.
Discover the Power of Venio Cloud
Ready for enterprise speed without the infrastructure overhead? Launch your Venio Cloud environment today.
