Description
OBJECTIVES:
- Describe ethical methods for processing documents for delivery to an opposing legal team.
- Develop a plan to respond to a discovery request
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Review the scenario presented in the Discussion Forum.
The senior attorney on the second floor of the office building had been a big help in advising attorney Owen Mason, based on his years of experience as a lawyer. He rarely tried any cases, at least not in the past 10 years. He approached Mason to personally request his paralegal's help with a case that had been filed in federal court. He had just received a discovery request involving Product Guild Limited (PGL), one of his biggest international clients. PGL was a paperless organization that stored everything electronically. There was a request for all the e-mails from the client for the past two years and all the corporate correspondence and a time deadline imposed by the rules of court. The senior attorney asked Mason if you could work for him as a part-time, independent paralegal to prepare a plan for handling this request. Mason agreed and asked you to begin working on a plan. - Click here (Links to an external site.) to access the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Cornell University's website. See rules 26, 33, 34 and 37 specifically regarding discovery.
- Prepare a plan listing the information that the legal team will need in order to gather the requested documents and how they should handle the discovery request from the opposing team. Answer the following questions in your plan:
- Which documents are required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to be provided to the opposing legal team?
- How will the documents be gathered?
- What format(s) will be used?
- How will confidential and privileged information be protected? Are there any ethical considerations
Discussion Scenario,
Hypothetical:
The senior attorney on the second floor of the office building had been a big help in advising attorney Owen Mason, based on his years of experience as a lawyer. He rarely tried any cases, at least not in the past 10 years. He approached Mason to personally request his paralegal's help with a case that had been filed in federal court. He had just received a discovery request involving Product Guild Limited (PGL), one of his biggest international clients. PGL was a paperless organization that stored everything electronically. There was a request for all the e-mails from the client for the past two years, all corporate correspondence, and a time deadline imposed by the rules of court. The senior attorney asked Mason if you could work for him as a part-time, independent paralegal to prepare a plan for handling this request. Mason agreed and asked you to begin working on a plan.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp the external link
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Running head: E-DISCOVERY
1
Plan for e-Discovery in Civil Litigation
Name
Institution
E-DISCOVERY
2
Plan for e-Discovery in Civil Litigation
A legal team responding to a request for discovery by an opposing team must be well
informed of the nature and extent of discovery required in the circumstances of the case. In this
case, the request for discovery in relation to PGL covers all e-mails from the client for the past
two years as well as the corporate correspondence within the stipulated period. Further, the
nature of discovery in this case involves electronically stored documents in light of the fact that
PGL is a paperless organization that stores everything electronically. Accordingly, the team
handling the discovery request must take cognizance of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
concerning the discovery of electronically stored information. Suffice to not that the rules, under
Rule 16 (f) stipulate that the opposing teams should cooperate and work out the scope and nature
of electronic discovery dictated by the circumstances of the case. Finally, being aware of the
request for discovery, the duty to preserve any documents or electronic information that relates
to the case arises. Accordingly, the client must be...
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