Litigation is a complex and costly process. Motions practice, discovery and trial comprise an intricate dance, but it is surprising that the discovery phase of litigation frequently ends up being the most complicated and expensive part of the process. It often steals the show. Discovery—and e-discovery in particular—has a number of moving parts, but from a 10,000-foot view it should be fairly straightforward. Discovery is about fact-gathering in the form of interrogatories, document exchange and depositions.
Document exchange, however, ends up being much more than just gathering and sorting through documents in order to identify those that are responsive and not privileged. In fact, it ends up being unnecessarily complicated. The mechanics of document exchange, oddly, are not the most complicated part of the process. Managing time, money and expectations throughout document exchange are the real tricks in the process.
