Kudos to George Paul and Tom Gilson for a thoughtful article on the pitfalls of search term strategies in electronic discovery, entitled "Seek and Ye Shall Find?" The article provides a useful checklist of precautions including negotiations with your adversary, documenting your decisions, testing your terms and exploring alternate technologies to validate your search.
Studies have demonstrated that no set of search terms is guaranteed to retrieve 100 percent of all relevant documents. Of course, it is equally true that a manual (eyes-on paper) search isn't failsafe either. The best protection against sanctions when the missing missive eventually surfaces lies in reaching agreement with opposing counsel. Until we lawyers get past the gunslinger mentality (shoot anything that moves), reaching agreement can be a daunting challenge. The best chance of reaching agreement with opposing counsel lies in a mediated meet and confer or results from strong oversight from the bench.
No comments:
Post a Comment