Resources Necessary for an Effective Litigation Document Review
Preparing effectively for litigation is as important as making arguments in the courtroom. Litigation document review involves various processes to ensure that all privileged and confidential material is properly protected while still ensuring responsiveness during the discovery process. Here are some of the resources needed to provide effective document review for cases that will be litigated:
Case Information
One of the first tools necessary is the case briefing memo and materials. This information includes the names/titles of people involved, the date range of when communications took place, and any keywords that may have been used in recording notes, sending emails, or generating other communications. It should also include a background on the case to provide the attorneys involved with context for their review. Only when the reviewers have a thorough understanding of the issues of the case may they start the document review process.
Legal Team Strategy
Understanding the legal team’s strategy when beginning the litigation process is also critical to performing an efficient document review. The review team should be fully briefed on issues of particular importance so that they can flag relevant documents during the review on a rolling basis.
Language Within the Litigation Document Review
During a document review, every person on the review team must be consistent in their approach to evaluating documents. This means using the terms responsive, non-responsive, confidential, and privileged consistently during the review. Project leaders can use the quality control process to ensure early in the review that all reviewers have a consistent understanding of the case issues. And then quality control searches should be performed throughout the review to maintain this consistency.
Efficiency, Accuracy, and Thoroughness
Because document review is typically one of the most costly aspects of a case, it is important that a review team be accurate and thorough while also maintaining efficiency. Mistakes can be costly. Having an experienced litigation document review team will prevent unexpected costs while ensuring all relevant factors have been covered.
Having access to both an effective and cost-saving solution for litigation document review can be very beneficial to law firms and in-house counsel. If you are considering the benefits of outsourcing your document review or would like to learn more, contact Baer Reed legal support services and find out what we can do for your practice.
- On October 23, 2017
- Back to post list