2.1 Documents from Opponents and Third Parties
It is necessary to think strategically about collecting documents from your opponents. If you have already engaged in a document management process of your own, one solution is to negotiate a process where by an equivalent document exchange will be done by the other parties.
It is important to understand that there are various document search processes that may affect the quality of the document searches. These can be affected by the way the documents are scanned and the language searches that have been used to sort and flag the key documents. If each side can engage in a shared process for document exchange, each may reach a similar level of trust concerning the documents produced by the documents. This is the process contemplated by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and its mandatory disclosure provisions of all documents that relate to claims pled and any defenses. The FRCP rule 26(f) Conference is designed to facilitate this exchange and provide a forum for mediating any difficulties that may ariseOf course, one way to test the legitimacy of what has been exchanged is to do your own search of the other side’s documents. First you need to determine the scope of your search. How many years do you need to go back and how many divisions of a particular company may be involved. Again, once you have the world of documents, you need to convert them into a searchable data base. In a sense, you drill into these documents for a core sample, like you drill for a core sample to find valuable minerals. Your OCR support can help you frame your language search techniques and your samples to most efficiently produce the key documents.
In the appropriate case, you may also want to search the Internet for other publicly produced documents and check these against what you are receiving from the opposition. Publicly traded companies make press releases, SEC and national exchange disclosures, and hold shareholder meetings. In addition, look for magazine interviews, newspaper reports, and television interviews that may have been conducted with key employees. You may also want to search the internet for Web sites for company information, bloggers, chat rooms, etc. for employee statements that relate to your dispute.