Document Review

Document Review & Production Strategy

Beginning with the subpoena a case strategy was established including key contacts for the matter, budget, ESI collection, e-discovery provider and review platform. The data is now ready to be reviewed by the attorney review team.

  • Design and Understand the Review Process…

    Define the role, strengths and weaknesses of the firm’s resources. Meet with attorney managing matter determining important issues and other criteria required by reviewers to track. Seek training if necessary on review platform selected for review.

  • Establish a “Cheat Sheet” for Review Attorney Reference…

    Consistency is the key to meeting expectations. An overview of the case should be prepared to establish clarity of review goals. Information and clear goals will allow the managing attorney to hold review attorneys accountable for their performance.
  • Information provided to the review attorneys would contain custodian names, title or position, ESI collected (e-mail, IM, cell phone, Voice mail, paper files, electronic files), priority of custodian and volume of data as an aggregate or by ESI. Tracking logs or checklist are usually part of the software package chosen for review. They are capable of generating completion dates, redactions and second reviews to name a few.
  • Other contents of the cheat sheet would include a summary of the matter, production log, examples of hot docs/cold docs/CAP, contact sheet for internal contacts and service providers, IT personnel, and copies of document request.

Review Training

Training sessions should be scheduled with the firm’s attorney review team. Basic functionality would include designating responsive documents, redacting, saving documents to folders, logging in and simply opening documents. Clarity should also be given to how e-mail parent child relationships are bundled for review.

Training with the attorney and paralegal in charge is a must. This is the first opportunity to put the litigation team in charge of meeting expectations and troubleshooting any potential problems. The opportunity during the one-on-one training typically uncovers specific functionality the software provides as it relates to the matter. The feature utilized can be noted and highlighted during the formal training with the entire review team.

After the one-on-one with the team in charge it is time to train the entire review team. This meeting will allow the attorney in charge to discuss specific information related to the case and how the software will handle privilege and redactions. Review goals should be set for review and production during the training additionally how the team will be measured for accountability should also be reviewed with a Q&A session. If problems are identified in the team training missed in the first training session with the attorney in charge the necessary changes will be made for approval prior to the review officially beginning.

Production Requirements and Criteria

As the review concludes revisit the plan of attack for the production. Running queries, where to move responsive, redacted and privileged documents. Review other copies of documents which have not been redacted for consistency. Apply bates numbers, establish production delivery media type and verify all fields agreed to by opposing counsel from meet and confer. Depending on the case you may want to have load files created for the in-house database prior to producing to the opposing counsel. This will allow a sample viewing of thedatabase.

Time taken to pre-plan from the subpoena to the last delivery of data to opposing counsel will truly make hurdles smaller and the experience of a document review more enjoyable.