Discovery Requests and Responses Part 1

As a #biglaw litigation associate—after one-off research memos and document reviews (links in comments)—next you'll probably draft discovery requests and/or discovery responses.

Where to begin?

This is an art you’ll grow comfortable with over time.

Let's start by defining discovery and discovery requests.

📚 Discovery is the formal (and sometimes informal) process by which parties to a lawsuit exchange information.

Parties give and receive information--documents, the identity of witnesses, narrative explanations, depositions--that they will use to defend/prosecute their case and poke holes in the other side's case.

This is done by serving and responding to discovery requests (as well as making other disclosures required by law, along with depositions).

There are three types of discovery requests:

📚 Interrogatories: Questions the responding party must answer via narrative response.

📚 Requests for Production of Documents: Categories of documents the responding party must produce documents responsive to the request.

📚 Requests for Admission: Fact statements the responding party must admit or deny (and often give a narrative explanation for any denial).

When assigned the task of drafting discovery requests/responses, you'll think, "Yes. I remember this from Civ Pro II."

But, more likely than not, you did not have to draft these things in law school.

And although often seemingly straightforward, there's also often a lot of nuance to it.

More on what comes next tomorrow.

#emilylitigates #law #legalissues #gettingthingsdone