Litigation: Managing Document Production in Asymmetrical Lawsuits

Intellectual Property partner Mark Baghdassarian and associate Aaron Frankel’s article “Litigation: Managing Document Production in Asymmetrical Lawsuits” appears on InsideCounsel.com. It is the fourth in a series of articles that address issues raised by managing asymmetrical litigations, or David versus Goliath situations, and the strategies for how to handle them effectively and efficiently.

The article presents strategies for getting through document production during discovery as quickly and efficiently as possible. The authors state that Goliath-sized defendants should invest time upfront to minimize the scope (and, therefore, cost) of document production and try to avoid or defuse non-substantive discovery updates. They discuss a “quality-in, quality-out” approach to document production; how defendants should make every effort to negotiate with plaintiffs on the scope of the documents that should and should not be included in the production; why a pragmatic approach to non-substantive discovery is sometimes a better case strategy; and the cost-effectiveness of using emerging technologies to process and review documents.