Effective Project Management in Discovery
April 8th, 2009 | By Ashish PrasadThis is a guest post by Ashish Prasad. Mr. Prasad has served as the Executive Editor of the Sedona Principles: Best Practices Recommendations and Principles for Addressing Electronic Document Production, and is the CEO of Discovery Services LLC. Read Mr. Prasad’s full bio at the end of this post.
I. Introduction
Discovery is among the biggest risks facing modern litigants. Effective management of discovery can have an equal, or in some circumstances, greater effect on the outcome of litigation than the actual merits of the case. No one gets to summary judgment, trial, or in most cases, a settlement without first going through the discovery minefield.
Going through the discovery minefield without a plan means taking an unnecessary risk that something will “explode” and derail your litigation efforts and strategy. Not only can discovery errors result in excessive costs, affect the outcome of the case or result in monetary sanctions levied against a client, but courts can impose monetary sanctions on counsel for discovery mismanagement as well. Effective project management is the key to avoid sanctions and other bad things that happen to lawyers and clients en route to case resolution.
This article first briefly explains counsel’s duty to manage discovery, then through several case examples, provides a description of the problems clients and counsel can encounter during discovery, and finally, provides a model for effective project management in discovery.
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