ExxonMobil Pipeline had a problem in discovery: their discovery responses were overdue. The requests for production was served in November 2013 and due after one extension in January 2014. The Plaintiffs rightly brought a motion to compel.
The Defendants had enough discovery to give most eDiscovery attorneys a migraine with a nosebleed: 16 separate lawsuits, with 165 discovery requests in one case, a total of 392 requests in all the related cases, and 83 custodians with approximately 2.7 million electronic documents. Other discovery going back to 1988 had over 63,000 paper documents that were scanned and to be searched with keywords. Additionally, there were approximately 630,000-800,000 documents that had to be reviewed for responsiveness, confidentiality, and privilege. The Defendants had produced 53,253 documents consisting of over 191,994 pages. United States v. ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81607, 5-8 (E.D. Ark. June 9, 2014).
The Defendants suggested using predictive coding in light of the large volume of discovery, but the Plaintiff the United States did not agree with the use of predictive coding (at least since the filing of the motions). ExxonMobil Pipeline, at *6. Moreover, the parties did not seek relief from the Court on the use of predictive coding, other than to order the parties meet and confer. ExxonMobil Pipeline, at *6-7.
The Defendants explained that using traditional review with 50 attorneys that document review could be completed by the end of June 24 and production by the end of August 2014. ExxonMobil Pipeline, at *6.
The United States disagreed with the Defendants assumption of lawyers only reviewing 250 documents/files a day. Moreover, the Defendants did not raise concerns about document review when they entered an agreed upon scheduling order in October 2013. ExxonMobil Pipeline, at *6-7.
The Court acknowledged that the Defendants had a large volume of discovery to review. Moreover, it was unclear if the parties had agreed to a review methodology before the Court issued its order. Regardless, the Court ordered the Defendants to complete their review and production by July 10, 2014, absent good cause. ExxonMobil Pipeline, at *7-8.
Bow Tie Thoughts
Most attorneys do not think about document review strategies at the beginning of a case. They should. Discovery is the backbone of civil litigation. Unless you know the information you have to review, strategies to maximize efficiency, and reviewing for claims or defenses, document review can be a nightmare experience.
This case does not go into why the Defendants sought agreement from the Plaintiff on the use of predictive coding. I do not agree with that strategy, unless a specific review protocol was ordered at the Rule 16 conference that the producing party wanted to change.
The issue with a document production is whether or not the production is adequate. Lawyers should agree to the subject matter of the case, custodians, data ranges, and other objective information that goes to the merits of the lawsuit. When lawyers start asking each other for permission on whether they can use predictive coding, visual analytics, clustering, email threading, or any other technology, civil litigation becomes uncivil. Case in point: the Plaintiffs argued the Defendants could review more than 250 documents a day in this case. Such disputes turn into an academic fight over how much lawyers can read and analyze in a 9-hour workday. The end result of such motion practice would be a Judge ordering lawyers to read faster.
My advice is to focus on the merits and not derail the case with a fight over what review technology can be used. Fight over whether the production is adequate, not what whether you can use predictive coding.