Don't get "Trumped" by burgeoning discovery obligations

By Claire Frazer and Clare Chalkley

While enjoying our morning coffee together, we came across this article by The Washington Post which said:

"Trump’s defense cited the “enormity” of discovery as one massive hurdle to a trial, saying the defense would need to review 99,762 pages per day to finish the government’s initial production by Dec. 11, its proposed date for jury selection — the equivalent of 78 copies of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” — in total a tower of paper more than eight times as tall as the Washington Monument if printed out and stacked.

The government’s proposal ... is flatly impossible,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, “No defendant can reasonably review nearly 100,000 pages of discovery per day.”

?Another day, another misconception about the challenges of document discovery/disclosure. While the deadline would certainly pose a challenge and an expense, Integreon clients are routinely under similar deadlines and can affordably categorise and prioritise over 100,000 pages per day, utilising robust processes, project management expertise, innovative workflows and a technology toolkit stacked to best fit the needs of the data set.

Once the true picture of the underlying data types is known and it is confirmed as to whether the 11.6 million is documents or pages (BIG DIFFERENCE), a completion timeline based on real information could be compiled. For example, 100,000 pages of emails is a very different proposition to 100,000 pages of dense, complex presentations, excel files or chat data. For illustrative purposes, if we assume it really is 11.6 million pages (consisting of email and regular attachments like short word or pdf files) and through the techniques mentioned above we can reduce the population by 75% and If we assume a page count per document of 4-7 pages, the document population would be 725,000 documents or less. By deploying an AI/Assisted Learning workflow, Integreon’s global delivery teams regularly complete review projects of this scale utilising a "follow the sun" delivery model within a 3 month period or less.

Relevant information to support the legal teams review, trial prep and witness binders can be shared on a daily basis. We can also supplement and offer consulting to the legal team via our experts at every stage, from Early Case Assessment and deep dive on specific issues through to trial enabling the legal team to achieve what at first glance is an insurmountable challenge within an impossible timeframe.

Of course Integreon does not recommend printing a tower of paper 8 times as tall as the Washington Monument, instead we recommend using eDiscovery technology hosted by one of our preferred partners to identify documents that require review and establishing a workflow that would surface the most relevant material in a timely manner to avoid wasting precious time on irrelevant and duplicative documents. Gone are the days where the only means of meeting a tight production deadline is via an army of paralegals in a basement, working 24 hours a day, turning pages and making manual notes. Technology makes us smarter and more efficient if it is deployed by true review experts like Integreon and our portfolio of partners. The combination of human insight and intellect coupled with AI technology is the holy grail!

What Mr. Trump’s lawyers are saying may have been true before the advent of review technology, but in today’s litigation technology landscape Mr. Trump can choose from any number of platforms and providers that would facilitate a fast review.?Had Mr. Trump been indicted in 1992 the basement full of overworked paralegals would have been?real life scenario. However, we live in a world where Chat GPT can read War and Peace in less than a second and AI/Assisted Learning workflows make short work of 11.6 million pages.

In this day and age, it is standard practice for law firms to demonstrate via their discovery/disclosure strategy that they are using best practice to get the job done. Mr Trump and his team should surely do the same.?

For more information on our document review services please vist: https://www.integreon.com/what-we-do/legal-and-compliance-solutions/document-review-services/