In recent years, a number of news stories have chronicled how lawyers have run into trouble with redactions. The process and technology for handling redactions can complicate discovery efforts, leading to increased time and expense. But the need to apply redactions and safeguard the underlying information is often significant, especially to ensure that the privilege or confidentiality of client materials are sufficiently protected.

A related, but less frequently discussed, issue with redactions is the question of relevancy redactions. While redaction of information that is privileged or otherwise protected is generally accepted as standard operating procedure by courts, regulatory agencies, and counsel, redaction of irrelevant information from otherwise relevant produced documents may not be.