Compliance & Legal

How to respond to a subpoena or legal hold as Small Legal and Compliance Teams

Compliance & LegalFor Small Legal and Compliance Teams3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

A subpoena or litigation hold lands in your inbox at 4 PM on a Tuesday. You have two people, no e-discovery tool, and a contract tracker in Notion that hasn't been touched since Q2. You need to identify every relevant email thread, contract, Slack message, and document custodian — fast. Your Gmail has 40,000 messages. Your Google Drive has folders named 'final_FINAL_v3.' The opposing deadline is tomorrow morning. Ironclad or Relativity would handle this, but neither is in your budget, and both assume a legal-ops person to run them. Right now it's you, a search bar, and a very long night.

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Compliance & LegalFor Small Legal and Compliance Teams3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A legal-hold tracker app that logs every hold, lists custodians, tracks acknowledgment status, and flags when someone hasn't confirmed — built on top of Gmail, Outlook, Notion, and Google Drive

An email triage workflow that surfaces every thread matching a counterparty name, date range, or keyword across your Gmail or Outlook inbox, summarized and prioritized before you read a single one

A task board scoped to the specific subpoena response — production deadlines, custodian follow-ups, privilege review queue — so nothing falls through the cracks when you're working across two matters simultaneously

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Task Manager Knowledge Management

Data sources & config

Starch syncs your Gmail on a schedule and queries Outlook live from the integration catalog. Notion pages and databases sync on a schedule. Google Drive is connected from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries it live when your app needs to surface documents. DocuSign is connected from Starch's integration catalog for custodian acknowledgment tracking. The task manager app runs natively in Starch — no external connection needed.

Prompts to copy

Search my Gmail for every email mentioning 'Acme Corp' or 'John Hartley' sent or received between January 1 2024 and March 31 2025. Summarize each thread in one sentence and flag any that mention pricing, termination, or complaints.

Build me a legal hold tracker that records: matter name, issuing court, hold date, list of custodians, acknowledgment status per custodian (yes/no/pending), and production deadline. Pull custodian names from my Notion contacts database and send each one a hold notice email draft via Gmail.

Create a task list for the Acme subpoena response. P1 tasks: custodian notices out by EOD. P2: privilege review of flagged threads. P3: production set compiled. P4: cover letter drafted. Set the production deadline as the due date for all P1 and P2 items.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect Gmail or Outlook: Starch syncs your Gmail on a schedule, so when the subpoena hits, you're not starting a cold search — the message history is already indexed. Outlook users connect from Starch's integration catalog.

2 Connect Notion: Starch syncs your Notion databases on a schedule. Your existing contract tracker, vendor list, and any employee directory you maintain there become queryable immediately.

3 Connect Google Drive from Starch's integration catalog: the agent queries it live. Point Starch at the folders most likely to hold responsive documents — executed contracts, NDAs, correspondence archives.

4 Open the Email Triage app (or describe what you need): type 'Search my synced Gmail for every thread involving Acme Corp between January 2024 and March 2025, summarize each thread, and flag any that mention price, termination, dispute, or complaint.' Starch returns a prioritized, summarized list — not a raw search result dump.

5 Build a legal-hold tracker app: describe it in plain language — 'I need an app that tracks active legal holds, lists custodians per hold, records whether each custodian acknowledged the hold, and shows the production deadline.' Starch builds the surface; you populate it or have Starch pull custodian names from your Notion contacts.

6 Draft custodian hold notices: prompt Starch to draft a hold notice email for each custodian using your firm's standard language, personalized with the matter name and their specific data categories. Queue them for your review before send.

7 Log the matter in your knowledge management app: create a page for this hold with the docket number, key dates, custodian list, and a running privilege log. Starch auto-categorizes it alongside prior holds.

8 Open the Task Manager app and scope it to this matter: capture every action item — custodian notices, privilege review, production set assembly, cover letter, meet-and-confer prep — with P1–P4 priorities and the court deadline as the hard due date.

9 Run a second pass on flagged threads: for any email thread Starch flagged as potentially responsive, prompt it to extract key facts — who said what, on what date, with what attachment — so your privilege review is organized before you open a single PDF.

10 Track acknowledgment status: connect DocuSign from Starch's integration catalog to log which custodians have signed their hold acknowledgment and which are pending. Set a reminder task to follow up with non-responders after 24 hours.

11 Compile the production set: use Starch to generate a log of all responsive, non-privileged documents identified — filename, custodian, date, brief description — formatted for your outside counsel or opposing party.

12 Post-matter: update your knowledge management app with lessons learned and a template hold notice for the next time. Starch can detect when the matter page goes stale and prompt you to close it out or archive it.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

Acme Corp Subpoena — February 2026

Sample numbers from a real run

Custodians identified	7
Email threads surfaced by Starch search	214
Threads flagged as potentially responsive	31
Threads ultimately produced (non-privileged)	18
Hours saved vs. manual Gmail search	9
Custodian acknowledgments outstanding at 24h mark	2

On February 11, 2026, your company received a subpoena from Acme Corp covering all communications related to a disputed SaaS contract from 2024. You have until February 13 to issue litigation holds and until March 1 to produce documents. You open Starch and type: 'Search my synced Gmail for every thread mentioning Acme Corp or the contract number MSA-2024-0047 between January 1 2024 and December 31 2024. Summarize each thread and flag any that mention pricing disputes, termination rights, or escalations.' Starch surfaces 214 threads in under two minutes and flags 31 as potentially responsive. You identify 7 custodians — three on your sales team, two in finance, your CEO, and yourself. Starch drafts individualized hold notices for all 7, which you review and send via Gmail. You build a hold-tracker app in Starch that shows acknowledgment status per custodian; by the next morning, 5 of 7 have confirmed. Starch flags the two holdouts and drafts a follow-up. By February 13, all 7 have acknowledged. You then run privilege review on the 31 flagged threads using Starch's summaries as your first-pass filter, identifying 13 as privileged and 18 as producible. The production log — filename, custodian, date, description — is drafted by Starch and reviewed by you before it goes to outside counsel. Total attorney time on the response: 11 hours, down from an estimated 20 hours of manual searching and drafting.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Time from subpoena receipt to litigation hold notices sent (target: same business day)

Custodian acknowledgment rate within 24 hours of hold notice (target: 100%)

Hours spent on email search and thread review per matter

Percentage of responsive documents identified in first Starch pass vs. requiring manual follow-up search

Production deadline met without extension request (yes/no per matter)

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Relativity or Logikcull

Purpose-built e-discovery tools with robust culling and review workflows, but priced for matters with hundreds of thousands of documents and teams with a dedicated litigation support person — not a 2-person legal team handling 2-4 matters per year.

Manual Gmail search + spreadsheet

Zero cost and no new tools to learn, but Gmail's search misses attachments and non-indexed threads, a spreadsheet has no custodian-acknowledgment logic, and you're doing all summarization yourself under deadline.

Ironclad or Evisort

Strong for contract lifecycle management and obligation tracking, but neither is an e-discovery or legal-hold tool, and both assume a legal-ops owner and a six-figure budget — the wrong tool for this workflow entirely.

Notion alone

Good for logging hold status if you build and maintain the tracker yourself, but Notion can't search your Gmail, draft custodian notices, or surface responsive documents — it's a place to store the output, not to do the work.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — founder inbox, task manager, knowledge management all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does Starch actually search inside email threads, or just subject lines?

Starch syncs your Gmail messages on a schedule — including thread content, not just subject lines — and the agent searches across that synced data. For Outlook users, Starch connects from the integration catalog and queries messages live. Neither replaces a true e-discovery platform for very large document sets, but for a 2-person team handling a focused date range and counterparty, it covers the realistic search scope.

Can Starch search Google Drive for responsive documents, not just email?

Yes. Connect Google Drive from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries it live when your app runs. You can tell Starch to search a specific folder or drive for files mentioning a counterparty name, contract number, or keyword. It won't ingest and index every byte of a 500GB drive, but for targeted document searches scoped to a legal matter it works well.

Is Starch SOC 2 certified? Should I be running privileged documents through it?

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today — that's on the roadmap. For highly sensitive privilege review or matters with strict confidentiality requirements, you should evaluate that honestly. Many small-team legal workflows — hold tracking, custodian notices, task management, non-privileged document logging — don't require the same bar. Use your judgment on what you route through Starch until SOC 2 is in place.

What about Slack messages? Subpoenas often cover internal Slack.

Slack is a scheduled-sync provider in Starch — channels and users sync on a schedule. You can build a custom app that queries Slack message history for a custodian and date range. Note that Slack's own data retention settings and your export tier (Business+ or Enterprise Grid) determine what's actually available to pull; Starch reads what Slack exposes, it doesn't bypass retention policies.

Can I track custodian acknowledgments through DocuSign in Starch?

Yes. DocuSign is available from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries it live. You can build a hold-tracker app that shows envelope status per custodian — sent, opened, signed, declined — so you're not logging into DocuSign separately to check who's confirmed.

What if the subpoena covers a SaaS tool we use that isn't Gmail or Notion?

Starch connects to 3,000+ apps through its integration catalog, plus any website through browser automation. If the tool has a web interface, Starch can automate it through your browser — no API needed. If it's in the integration catalog, connect it and the agent queries it live. For very niche internal tools, describe what you need and Starch will tell you what's reachable.

Does Starch replace outside counsel for subpoena response?

No. Starch handles the operational layer — searching, summarizing, tracking, drafting hold notices — not legal judgment calls about privilege, responsiveness, or litigation strategy. Think of it as doing the work you'd otherwise spend 8 hours on manually, so the 2 hours of actual attorney judgment you apply are applied to the right things.