Document review

Last updated

Document review (also known as doc review), in the context of legal proceedings, is the process whereby each party to a case sorts through and analyzes the documents and data they possess (and later the documents and data supplied by their opponents through discovery) to determine which are sensitive or otherwise relevant to the case. [1] Document Review is a valuable main staple of the type of work performed by attorneys for their clients, though it is increasingly common for the work to be performed by specialized document review attorneys. [2]

Some types of cases that typically require large numbers of documents to be reviewed are litigation, mergers and acquisitions, and government and internal investigations (including internal audits). Regarding litigation, documents reviewed by attorneys are obtained through the discovery process, which is generally governed by rules of procedure for the presiding court. In cases in United States Federal Courts the rules related to discovery are Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (F.R.C.P.) 16, 26, 33, 34, 37, and 45 which were amended in 2006 to include electronically stored information.

Though attorneys do still review hard copy documents today, most documents are reviewed electronically either as native files that were originally created electronically or as electronic copies of documents that were originally created in a hard copy format. [2] During the doc review process, each document may be tagged according to certain categories, including whether it is relevant to an issue in the case, whether it is responsive to a discovery request (and therefore may need to be produced as part of the discovery process), whether it is confidential, or whether it is attorney client or otherwise privileged. [1] When large amounts of documents need to be reviewed electronically, often a system is set up that includes review software. This system is known as a platform. The terms electronic discovery and technology assisted review have arisen to reflect the dominance of electronically stored information and the increasing use of machine learning and other technologies to help curb the growing cost of document review. [3] [4]

At times, even with the use of electronic document review platforms the volume of documents that need to be reviewed by an attorney for a case can be expansive and many attorneys including even highly staffed international law firms will need to obtain assistance beyond their standard resources. In these instances other attorneys are often brought into the case to assist specifically with the review of the documents. Traditionally, the additional attorneys needed to assist were hired on directly by attorneys and firms, or they may have worked as independent contractors. In recent years, many legal staffing companies have begun to act as intermediary employers between the law firms and the attorneys hired to assist with the document review. This trend has led to controversy in the legal profession as more and more of the work traditionally performed by U.S. attorneys is being outsourced to countries like India as a result of the legal staffing companies attempting to drive the rates down to remain competitive.

Traditional markets in the United States where many attorneys and firms typically hire additional attorneys to assist with document review are Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. In Canada many attorneys assist with document review in Toronto.

In Europe the biggest market for document review is typically London. [5]

Related Research Articles

In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons that the filing party or parties believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party or parties against whom the claim is brought that entitles the plaintiff(s) to a remedy. For example, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that govern civil litigation in United States courts provide that a civil action is commenced with the filing or service of a pleading called a complaint. Civil court rules in states that have incorporated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure use the same term for the same pleading.

An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as an expert. The judge may consider the witness's specialized opinion about evidence or about facts before the court within the expert's area of expertise, to be referred to as an "expert opinion". Expert witnesses may also deliver "expert evidence" within the area of their expertise. Their testimony may be rebutted by testimony from other experts or by other evidence or facts.

A deposition in the law of the United States, or examination for discovery in the law of Canada, involves the taking of sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that may be reduced to a written transcript for later use in court or for discovery purposes. Depositions are commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada. They are almost always conducted outside court by the lawyers themselves, with no judge present to supervise the examination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discovery (law)</span> Pretrial procedure in common law countries for obtaining evidence

Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from other parties by means of methods of discovery such as interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions and depositions. Discovery can be obtained from nonparties using subpoenas. When a discovery request is objected to, the requesting party may seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion to compel discovery. Conversely, a party or nonparty resisting discovery can seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion for a protective order.

The Electronic Filing System is the Singapore Judiciary's electronic platform for filing and service of documents within the litigation process. In addition, it provides the registries of the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts with an electronic registry and workflow system; and an electronic case file. Recent enhancements have added a module which facilitates the conduct of hearing using documents that have been electronically filed.

Legal outsourcing, also known as legal process outsourcing (LPO), refers to the practice of a law firm or corporation obtaining legal support services from an outside law firm or legal support services company. When the LPO provider is based in another country, the practice is called offshoring and involves the practice of outsourcing any activity except those where personal presence or contact is required, e.g. appearances in court and face-to-face negotiations. When the LPO provider is based in the same country, the practice of outsourcing includes agency work and other services requiring a physical presence, such as court appearances. This process is one of the incidents of the larger movement towards outsourcing. The most commonly offered services have been agency work, document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings and briefs, and patent services.

Electronic discovery refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format. Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party.

Legal matter management or matter management refers to activities involved in managing all aspects of the corporate legal practice ("matters"). Matter management is distinguished from case management, in that case management is generally considered to refer to law firm related activities ("cases"). Matter management software systems serve a variety of functions including conflict and ethics control, accurate matter opening, day-to-day matter work, business intelligence, and marketing. This includes the tracking of such items as the attorneys and other workers on the case, type of legal work, industry of the client, witnesses, judges, Courts, opposing counsel, issues, documents, budgets and invoices associated with each particular legal matter.

A contract attorney is a lawyer who works on legal cases on a contract basis. Such work is generally of a temporary nature, often with no guaranteed employment term.

Attorney misconduct is unethical or illegal conduct by an attorney. Attorney misconduct may include: conflict of interest, overbilling, false or misleading statements, knowingly pursuing frivolous and meritless lawsuits, concealing evidence, abandoning a client, failing to disclose all relevant facts, arguing a position while neglecting to disclose prior law which might counter the argument, or having sex with a client.

The terms legal case management (LCM), legal management system (LMS), matter management or legal project management refer to a subset of law practice management and cover a range of approaches and technologies used by law firms and courts to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case or matter more effectively. Generally, the terms refer to the sophisticated information management and workflow practices that are tailored to meet the legal field's specific needs and requirements.

Pro se legal representation comes from Latin pro se, meaning "for oneself" or "on behalf of themselves" which, in modern law, means to argue on one's own behalf in a legal proceeding, as a defendant or plaintiff in civil cases, or a defendant in criminal cases, rather than have representation from counsel or an attorney.

Early case assessment refers to estimating risk to prosecute or defend a legal case. Global organizations deal with legal discovery and disclosure requests for electronically stored information "ESI" and paper documents on a regular basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Integrated Electronic Litigation System</span>

The Integrated Electronic Litigation System (iELS) or eLitigation (eLit) is an initiative by the Singapore Judiciary to replace the existing Electronic Filing System (EFS) which has been in use since 2000. EFS was conceived and developed in the mid- to late-1990s, and iELS represents the second phase in implementing technology to enhance the litigation process in Singapore.

Information Discovery is a term used in the legal and corporate industry which refers to the steps involved in distilling a corporation's data corpus down to the most pertinent evidence pertaining to a court-related matter or compliance directive. The major information discovery steps include: managing the entire data collection in a manner to identify all pertinent evidence associated with the matter, targeting that information for collection, processing and identification (culling) of relevant data, and processing for document hosting and legal document/information review.

Legal ghostwriting is a form of unbundled legal services in the United States in which an attorney drafts a document on behalf of a client without formally appearing before the court. Instead, the client represents themself pro se.

Catalyst Repository Systems is a privately held company based in Denver, Colorado, USA, which develops, hosts and supports cloud-based software for the management of electronic legal discovery. Founded in 2000, the company’s main product is Insight Discovery. Catalyst has offices and data centers throughout the United States and an office and data center in Tokyo, Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal technology</span> Technology and software to provide legal services

Legal technology, also known as Legal Tech, refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services and support the legal industry. Legal Tech companies are often startups founded with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative legal market.

Enterprise legal management (ELM) is a practice management strategy of corporate legal departments, insurance claims departments, and government legal and contract management departments.

The legal industry refers to the aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provide legal goods and services. The global legal industry is fast-growing: in 2015, it was valued at USD 786 billion, USD 886 billion by 2018 and is expected to exceed USD 1 trillion by 2021. The United States and Europe dominate the legal industry, with the former accounting for more than half of the global market revenue. Meanwhile, Europe accounts for more than a quarter of revenue. Legal services in the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow, with total revenues of $103.3 billion in 2018.

References

  1. 1 2 Kane, Sally. "What Is Document Review?". About.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  2. 1 2 Kane, Sally. "Document Reviewer". About.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  3. ↑ Mackay, Sheila. "Auto-Classification Review Technologies: What Every Attorney Needs to Know". The National Law Review. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  4. ↑ Bonney, Martin. "Technology-Assisted Review: An Essential Tool in the Age of Big Data". The Times. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
  5. ↑ "DocReview.co.uk - Legal Jobs in London". DocReview.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.