This week, I was
introduced to the “joy” that can be discovery, the pre-trial phase in a civil
suit in which opposing parties can obtain evidence from one another. This is
accomplished by requesting, for example, that the opposing party respond to
specific questions or produce particular documents. I’d been warned by an
attorney at our firm of the woes that so often accompany working on
discovery—the tedium of poring over countless documents, the inordinate amount
of time it can take to organize the jumbled mess of papers provided by clients,
and the stress of having to persuade those clients who are loath to comply in any
way with the opposing party, to cooperate. So, I confess, I was a little less
enthusiastic than usual when presented with my first discovery assignment.
My job was to identify,
copy, and label everything in the sizable stack of documents our client provided
in response to the opposing party’s “Request for the Production of Documents.”
I admit it, I was intimidated. Luckily for me, though, this particular client
was also the Most Organized Person in the World. She typed her responses
beneath the requests in blue, which provided a helpful contrast for my tired
eyes; she created separate folders for each request, neatly stacked in order
and filled with crisp, stapled copies of every single document requested; she
even went ahead and made multiple copies of documents that were requested more
than once.
My first experience with
this aspect of the discovery process, I was reminded (a bit resentfully,
perhaps?), was not the norm. But, even though this client made the process a
relative breeze, it still took me most of an afternoon to finish. This
introduction has shown me that it’s definitely in the client’s best interest to
help make the often onerous discovery process move as quickly as possible for
their attorney, which can be accomplished simply by putting documents in order
(or by providing the requested documents in the first place). In turn, the
client will save money and win the admiration and respect of law clerks
everywhere.
Until next time,
Johannah O’Malley
