Crane on Law by James Crane

One of the most important considerations in executing a large-scale action is how to organize the data population prior to review. If the discovery team is using the proper technological tools, you can successfully limit the review of unnecessary material and bring the most relevant documents forward by using filtering.

For example, e-mail messages can and should be filtered using the fields of text extracted during processing. The most common keyword filters are author, recipient, CC, BCC, Subject, Body, Filename and file display name of the attachments, and the parent folder. Various types of queries can also be run across any field or group of fields. These include Boolean, stemming, phonic, proximity and fuzzy queries, as well as queries that use thesauri and wildcards to find near-matches on terms.

Attorneys that use a variety of searching techniques to organize the client’s data to prepare for an investigation, discovery, or ongoing productions will enjoy advantages, including:

• Pre-screening data for internal investigations to quickly isolate issue-specific documents;
• Creating litigation themes at the outset of a case to craft a strategic discovery plan incorporating witness preparation, estimating potential exposure, and anticipating problematic documents;
• Segregating potentially privileged or sensitive material for special review; and
• Removing specific material that may be irrelevant or otherwise not appropriate for review.

The benefit of “knowing what you have” cannot be underestimated.