It is totally common in business for certain broad topics of conversation to need to be retained for legal purposes, especially written communications. What ma

It is totally common in business for certain broad topics of conversation to need to be retained for legal purposes, especially written communications. What makes you think "chat" is any different than email? My (IANAL) understanding is that even if a Judge didn't order it explicitly, writing something like "let's not discuss this in email, meet me in the hallway" can look very bad in retrospect. Similarly, explicitly turning off chat transcripts (or failing to turn them on) when required may not be a good strategy, as this article shows. From the article: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_37 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_37 "If electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court [...] (2) only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation may: (A) presume that the lost information was unfavorable to the party; (B) instruct the jury that it may or must presume the information was unfavorable to the party; or (C) dismiss the action or enter a default judgment."