Document review is anything but glorious, but it has become a desperate necessity in today’s adversarial sphere of civil litigation. It has certainly become a dynamic linchpin in the fracas of electronic discovery.
Document review hasn’t always garnered so much attention. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “discovery” as a “pretrial device that can be used by one party to obtain facts and information about the case from the other party.” Document requests are only one of several “pretrial devices” that can be used to obtain information about a case along with oral depositions, written interrogatories and physical and mental examinations (See FRCP 26-37).
