Document Review

 After several months of idleness, I’m finally back on the road, legally, albeit a slightly different type of legal work:  document review. 

Legal proceedings take various forms, of course.  At the lowest level is small claims court, juvenile court, and General District Court (Virginia) and District Court (Maryland).  Here you have minor civil cases, traffic, and misdemeanors.  Upstairs – both in Maryland and Virginia – is Circuit Court, although Federal circuit courts are actually appellate courts.  In Circuit Court – and Federal district courts – is where the bigger things happen.  Divorces, felonies, and larger civil matters.

At the top of civil matters is litigation between major corporations, between major corporations and the US government, or class action suits.  Class actions usually occur when an Evil Corporation hurts millions of people, but each for a fairly small amount, too small for it to be worthwhile to sue, but taken as an aggregate might mean millions of dollars.  As a class action claimant you might wait 5 years and then receive, out of nowhere, a check in the mail for $5.86, the amount some greedy corporation overcharged you.  

These huge cases involve tons of discovery.  “Discovery” is the process by which opposing parties in litigation exchange information.   “Interrogatories” are questions:  “why do you think my client is liable?”, “What are your legal defenses?” “Which witnesses do you plan to call, and what do they know?” “Who, if any, will be your expert witnesses, and what are their qualifications?”  and so forth.  “Requests for production of documents” (RPDs) simply ask for documents, usually whichever documents the party alleges supports their position or may otherwise be relevant to the proceedings.  In the context of document review, we seem to be reviewing literally every email sent since (a) the company formed or (b) email was invented, whichever came second. 

CACI/Winstar.  In May 1998 the sole proprietor for whom I was working, managed to get himself hired by a fancy divorce firm in Fairfax, which wasn’t interested in his lowly associate.  By September, looking for any work I could find, I went to Manpower.  They were filling a slot for CACI, a government contractor, which in turn was filling a DOJ contract.  It seems there was a huge Court of Federal Claims suit, actually 120 separate savings & loans suing the US government over FIRREA.   That meant tons of documents from S&Ls, the FDIC, the FSLIC, and so forth, which needed to be scanned, indexed, and then someone had to actually review them.  Our group examined privileges.

From September 1998 to March 1999 we worked at CACI on L Street, in the same building as the DOJ.  In March 1999 we moved to a satellite office in Rosslyn, Virginia, three blocks away from where I was living at the time (River Place).  Then I was advised – wrongfully, and blatantly so – that being in close proximity to DOJ would let me get hired by DOJ as an attorney, so I moved back to L Street in january 2000.  Maybe a different unit but the DOJ attorneys treated us like insignificant worms.  Finally in November 2000 I got a job working at a law firm in Woodbridge, so that ended the CACI adventure.  I can’t complain too much, as it paid the bills consistently (though by no means extravagantly) and I met my first girlfriend, Leila, working there.

Crowell & Moring.  In April 2000 I took on a second project, for about 6 weeks.  This concerned litigation about DSL, which was then becoming the state of the art in Internet technology.  The law firm set us up in a small office in Rosslyn – yet again – and I worked every night from 6 to 11.  Mind you, this was in addition to CACI, so I had to get up early, take the Metro to L Street, then immediately take it back at 5 p.m. to be in Rosslyn for the second project.  Fortunately the substance of the projects was completely different so there was no conflict. 

We were mainly reviewing for relevance.  99.9% of the emails we reviewed had nothing to do with the subject matter of the litigation.  However, I did find ONE email where the subject matter actually touched upon the litigation. 

Responsive vs. Privilege.  Sometimes the document is reviewed for responsiveness.  The most basic form of responsiveness is substantive relevance to the subject matter of the litigation.  However, most of these emails have nothing to do with the litigation.  But the opposing firm will have its own reviewers.  You don’t want to miss the ONE “smoking gun” document where someone admits doing something evil, or knows someone else – who is professing ignorance of said evil – in fact is very much aware of it. 

Privilege seems to be more the more common review item.  Communications between attorneys and their clients are protected by attorney-client privilege.  Work product means documents prepared in preparation for litigation.  And there’s common interest/joint defense – ACP/WP between parties on the same side of legal dispute. 

Current Project.  Since it’s ongoing, I will not mention the parties, the nature of the litigation, and certainly nothing of substance, except to say that it’s document review. 

This time around it’s remote.  Not sure if it’s COVID or logistics, but this project is remote, meaning I sign in on my own computer at home, albeit through some appropriately secure portals to avoid hacking.  That saves me the business of driving or taking the Metro.  Theoretically I could do this naked, but I even though I live alone, I still don’t walk around naked outside the shower.  TMI, huh?  Anyhow, you get up, make breakfast, shower, log in to the website, and spend the next few hours deciding whether emails are protected by privilege or not. 

As lawyering goes, it’s extremely easy but also extremely dull.   I will say that private practice can be extremely stressful.  Showing up at court on time, wearing a suit and tie.  You have to meet deadlines, satisfy discovery requests, haggle with opposing counsel, satisfy clients who often have unrealistic expectations or change their stories or forget how to speak English when it’s “showtime”, and of course, appear in front of judges.  The client may or may not pay you, even if you do everything perfectly.  There’s all sorts of “manure occurs” issues which make it more interesting but also more stressful. Apparently being paid top dollar at a huge law firm – not that I’ve ever been in that situation, just going off of what I’ve heard – means the standards are that much higher.  Burp or fart at the wrong partner, or make any mistakes (because lawyers aren’t really human, are we?) and out you go.  And judges sometimes have a habit of ruling however the hell they want to, but fortunately it seems most of the time they behave like they belong on the bench.  So the very things which make an active legal practice interesting also make it that much more stressful – as I noted above.  But it pays, and it keeps me busy as an attorney, so I will not complain.

Does anyone actually go to law school and pass the bar exam with the express expectation of doing document review?  I doubt.  Then again, my goal in law school was to be a corporate lawyer, and the closest I got to that was forming LLCs and C corps for small businesses.  I never imagined doing divorce law, but I have to say that it’s not that bad.  Again, so long as I’m paid for document review I will remain satisfied.