Breathe deep.
Know you are not alone.
Then, three things ↓
Phase One
That is the normal condition of anyone reading this page. You may not yet be able to say clearly what happened to you, or in what order, or who knew. That understanding comes later. It always comes later.
What follows does not require you to understand your case. It does not require you to be functional. It asks for three small things, and all three are free.
The clock does not start when you find a lawyer. It started the day it happened, and it has been running ever since — while you were reeling, while you were asking friends who to call, while you waited for someone to read what you sent them.
Phone companies keep call and text detail for months, not years, and every carrier is different. Work accounts can be shut off overnight. Phones get lost, replaced, wiped. None of this waits for you to be ready.
This is the part that cannot be fixed later. Everything else in a case can be rebuilt. A record that was deleted is simply gone.
Do these this week
Take screenshots and back up the whole thread — not just the worst parts. From beginning to end, including the ordinary days. Save it somewhere that is not the phone itself: a computer, a drive, an account you control.
The parts you think are unimportant are frequently the parts that matter. Dates, times, and the mundane message sent an hour before are what make the rest provable.
Your own account is the least urgent. What matters most is what other people wrote: the message that set a meeting, the one that changed your role, the one that answered your complaint.
If this happened at work, you may lose that inbox with no warning and no chance to go back. Print what you can see now, while you can still see it.
Rules about company property and confidential material are real. Save what is plainly yours — messages you sent or received. Ask a lawyer before taking anything beyond that.
These are not on your phone. They live with your carrier, and they are the first thing to disappear. Log in to your carrier's website and download every month available — do not wait for a formal request to come back.
Then send a written request asking them to preserve all call and message detail for the full period. Do this even if you cannot yet say why you need it. Especially then.
The ordinary path is to look for a lawyer immediately. Someone recommends the best attorney they know. You arrive with a box, or a folder, or nothing at all, and you tell the story to an intake person. Then to another one. Each time, you relive it.
An agreement is put in front of you. It costs nothing to sign, and signing feels like relief — like handing the weight to someone stronger. Months later you may find that no one ever opened the box.
Organized evidence changes that meeting entirely. It is the difference between a person who needs to be screened and a case that can be evaluated. And it means you tell the story once, on paper, instead of out loud to strangers.
Takes one minute
Both iPhone and Android can be set to erase messages after thirty days, or after a year. Many phones are, and nobody told you. The thread you are counting on may already be shortening from the far end.
Open your settings now and tell the phone to keep everything.
Then, from today, delete nothing. Not the messages that embarrass you. Not the ones you wish you had never sent. Not the account you were about to close. Once a dispute exists, deleting becomes its own problem, and a far worse one than anything the thread contains.
Letter one — send this week
Your carrier does not keep what your messages said. It keeps the fact of them — the number, the date, the time, the length. That is why the thread on your phone matters, and it is also why this letter matters: the fact of a call at 6:40 on a Tuesday is often what proves the rest.
Send it in writing. Email, or the message center inside your account, and keep a copy of what you sent.
Subject: Records preservation request — account [account number] To whom it may concern: I am the account holder for the mobile number [your number]. I am writing to ask that you preserve, and not delete or overwrite, the following records for the period [start date] through [end date]: 1. Call detail records for this number — date, time, duration, and the other number, for every call incoming and outgoing. 1. Message detail records for this number — date, time, and the other number, for every SMS and MMS incoming and outgoing. 1. Records of account activity for this period, including any device change, SIM change, plan change, or change to who is listed on the account. These records are needed in connection with a legal matter. I am asking that they be placed on hold so they are not lost to your ordinary retention schedule while that matter proceeds. Please also tell me what is required to obtain copies, and confirm in writing that the hold is in place. [Your name] [Address] [Phone] [Email] [Date]
One thing to check first: carriers answer to the person named on the account. If you are on a family plan or a plan your employer pays for, you may not be able to request anything, and the person who can may not be on your side. Find out whose name the account is in before you spend a week waiting.
Letter two — read the caution first
Companies delete on a schedule. Mailboxes are closed, laptops are wiped and handed to someone else, chat histories roll off after ninety days. Once written notice arrives, that becomes a decision rather than a routine, and the difference matters later.
Before you send this: it tells the company you are contemplating a claim, and it may change how they treat you. That timing is a real decision and it belongs to you. If you can speak to a lawyer first, do. Send it from your personal email, not a work account you may lose access to.
Subject: Notice to preserve records To [name, title — send to HR and to the legal department]: I am writing to give notice that I anticipate a legal dispute concerning my employment, and to ask that the company preserve all records relating to it, including records that would otherwise be deleted under any routine retention or auto-deletion policy. Please preserve, from [start date] to the present: 1. All email to, from, or copying me, and all email between other people that refers to me, my work, my complaints, or my role. 1. All messages on any internal platform the company uses — Teams, Slack, or similar — including direct messages and channel messages. 1. My personnel file in full, including reviews, warnings, performance plans, and any notes kept outside the file. 1. Any recording, transcript, or notes of meetings or calls I attended, or that concerned me. 1. Any complaint, report, or investigation concerning me or made by me, including notes taken by anyone who looked into it. 1. Every document concerning the decision to [change my role / end my employment / describe what happened], including drafts and earlier versions. 1. Access and system records for this period — badge, building, network, and login logs. 1. Any device or account issued to me, in its current state, without wiping, reimaging, or reassignment. Please confirm in writing that this notice has been received and that a hold is in place. [Your name] [Personal email] [Date]
These are general templates for preserving records. They are not legal advice and they do not create any attorney relationship. What applies to you depends on your state, your carrier, and your employer.
Phase Two
Preparation is the point of Phase One, but it is not the end of it. The Plaintiffs Project exists to identify, interview, and learn from the trial lawyers others call when the stakes are highest — and to make sure prepared evidence reaches them.
About the project