Best Practices in the Document Review Process – Part I
Document production plays a critical role in the litigation review process. Document production creates the main corpus of potential evidence used for claim amendments, depositions, settlement negotiations, summary judgment efforts, and from which admissible trial exhibits will be identified, culled, introduced, and used. Thus, even small document productions must meet certain basic and essential requirements, including:
- Satisfying ethical and legal obligations under the applicable local Rules
- Achieving an exceptionally high accuracy rate in identifying, coding, and processing documents in a manner that correlates to the claim-specific litigation issues
- Meeting court-imposed and/or litigant-negotiated time deadlines
In addition, all document productions must satisfy certain client expectations such as maximizing efficiency, minimizing interference with client business operations, finishing within budget, and complying with client directives with respect to coding such as a “liberal” use of confidentiality markings that protect proprietary information/data, sources, and methods.
The document review process is the mechanism by which these basic and essential requirements are accomplished. To achieve an exceptional document review, here are some of the best practices that must be used.
Advance planning and auditing the document production environment
To establish budget and staffing requirements, a preliminary assessment is needed of what can be called the “document production environment.” Key questions include:
- What is the potential size of the document review?
- What is the proportion of paper-format documents as compared to electronic format documents?
- Are there complex and difficult retrieval issues with certain documents and formats?
- What are the expected categories of documents that are to be withheld?
- What is the most efficient method of categorizing documents, segregating them, and processing them?
- ● Based on the preliminary survey of the document environment, what technologies can be used effectively to make the document review cost- and time-efficient?
- What is the expected method of eventual production?
- Who are the personnel that must be involved and interviewed in the identification and retrieval process?
- Where is the most efficient, but least intrusive and disruptive, location for the document review?
These questions serve as a starting point for the case assessment process, which can and should be tailored to the specific needs of each individual case or internal investigation.
For more information on how we can help you design a document review process to efficiently meet your case or investigation needs, contact Baer Reed. We provide document review and other litigation support solutions to law firms and in-house legal teams around the globe. To learn more, contact us online or call us today at 888-433-1990.
- On February 15, 2022
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