What exactly is a “document?” For many decades, in the context of discovery there was no question – holding up a piece of paper, or some stapled together, the meaning of “document” was clear.

Eventually, email became the primary mode of business communication and the world was introduced to electronic discovery, codified in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2006 as discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”). A straightforward analogy between emails and paper documents was often helpful and appropriate in discovery because, except for the electronic part, there were many similarities between memos and emails.