If you are in the legal profession, you understand the importance of legal document reviews. This can be the most time consuming aspect of any work performed by a lawyer and his or her staff. The work involved dictates the number of individuals that will need to be hired at least temporarily to handle the work appropriately and within the designated time span. Increasingly, lawyers are turning to specialists in legal document review has become a common practice
What Is Legal Document Review?
This is a practice in which legal documents of all types are reviewed. It is one of the most common types of work done by lawyers for their clients. The need to perform such work is often associated with such things as:
• Mergers
• Acquisitions
• Investigation by the government
The task is to go through a substantial amount of related documents including such items as spreadsheets, emails, memos and letters. The intent is to identify such items as may prove to be useful in the upcoming legal course of action. In some instances, it will be merely summarization of documents or other items.
The work of a legal document review is intensive. It involves a significant number of individuals. It also requires many hours and ample space in which to complete the job. It is for this reason that some firms hire temporary attorneys, paralegals and even a legal document reviewer to handle the process efficiently while supplying the right material and doing all this in accordance with a set budget.
What Actually Does Legal Document Review Involve?
When it comes to a legal document review, the individuals involved will examine the material in three separate but related stages. The first stage consists of the initial examination of the documents with the intent of analyzing them in terms of relevance. The legal team at this point will mark them according to relevancy. They are then entered into specific databases that will make sure the next stage can be accomplished without undue issue. The input of the data will allow easy access by the search team through the choice and input of specific keywords.
The second stage involves a further review of the documents more in depth. They are looked at as to how they were applicable for the legal matter in terms of:
• Relevancy: Is the item relevant to the case?
• Privilege: Is the legal document subject to the laws governing lawyer-client privilege?
• Category: What category of relevance and privilege does the document fall into?
• Responsiveness: Is the information supplied by the document responsive to the client or to the opposition?
• Confidentiality: Is the document confidential in nature? Must all or only part of it be redacted to protect the client’s work?
• Key Aspects: What is the relationship of the key parts of a legal document to a key player or the key issues in this legal matter?
Once this process is completed, the amount of paperwork will have been whittled down to substantially less than what was available at the beginning of the legal document review. This provides the legal team engaged for this case with a more manageable and relevant amount of documents. It will allow them to become further acquainted easily and quickly with the major points and factual issues of the matter. They can then formulate the legal theories that will best represent the case when it comes to trial.
