Litigation Holds Now Must Cover AI Chat Logs, Delaware Court Signals
A Delaware Chancery Court decision in March 2026 has forced legal teams to rethink what documents must be preserved during litigation. The ruling in Fortis Advisors LLC v. Krafton Inc. clarifies that AI chat logs and similar digital records belong in litigation holds-the legal obligation to stop destroying potentially relevant materials once a lawsuit appears likely.
The decision matters because most litigation hold protocols predate widespread AI adoption. Teams accustomed to preserving emails, documents, and databases may not have procedures for capturing conversations in ChatGPT, Claude, or internal AI tools.
What Changed
The court's post-trial opinion made clear that chat logs generated during business operations qualify as discoverable evidence. This includes conversations where employees or advisors used AI systems to analyze contracts, draft strategies, or process confidential information.
The ruling affects discovery strategy across industries. Parties now face risk if they fail to preserve these records, and opposing counsel will likely request them as a matter of course.
Immediate Steps for Legal Teams
Organizations should audit their litigation hold procedures now. Key questions to address:
- Which AI tools does your organization use in business operations?
- Do your hold notices explicitly cover chat logs and AI-generated records?
- Can IT systems actually retrieve and preserve these conversations?
- Who is responsible for identifying which AI records fall within a hold?
Many organizations lack technical infrastructure to preserve chat logs at scale. Some AI platforms don't retain conversation history by default, or access requires manual export. Legal and IT teams need to coordinate before the next hold goes into effect.
The Broader Pattern
Courts are still developing standards for AI-related discovery. This decision is one of the first to directly address chat logs, but others will follow as AI use in business becomes routine. Staying ahead means updating hold language and preservation procedures before litigation begins.
For paralegals and legal operations staff, this means adding AI chat logs to document review workflows. The AI Learning Path for Paralegals covers how these tools are used in practice and what to look for during discovery.
Organizations that treat AI records as an afterthought will face sanctions, cost-shifting, or adverse inferences. Those that build preservation into their systems now will avoid those costs.
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