OBJECTIVES:
- Describe ethical methods for processing documents for delivery to an opposing legal team.
- Develop a plan to respond to a discovery request
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Review the scenario presented in the Discussion Forum.
The senior attorney on the second floor of the office building had been a big help in advising attorney Owen Mason, based on his years of experience as a lawyer. He rarely tried any cases, at least not in the past 10 years. He approached Mason to personally request his paralegal’s help with a case that had been filed in federal court. He had just received a discovery request involving Product Guild Limited (PGL), one of his biggest international clients. PGL was a paperless organization that stored everything electronically. There was a request for all the e-mails from the client for the past two years and all the corporate correspondence and a time deadline imposed by the rules of court. The senior attorney asked Mason if you could work for him as a part-time, independent paralegal to prepare a plan for handling this request. Mason agreed and asked you to begin working on a plan. - Click here (Links to an external site.) to access the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Cornell University’s website. See rules 26, 33, 34 and 37 specifically regarding discovery.
- Prepare a plan listing the information that the legal team will need in order to gather the requested documents and how they should handle the discovery request from the opposing team. Answer the following questions in your plan:
- Which documents are required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to be provided to the opposing legal team?
- How will the documents be gathered?
- What format(s) will be used?
- How will confidential and privileged information be protected? Are there any ethical considerations
Discussion Scenario,
Hypothetical:
The senior attorney on the second floor of the office building had been a big help in advising attorney Owen Mason, based on his years of experience as a lawyer. He rarely tried any cases, at least not in the past 10 years. He approached Mason to personally request his paralegal’s help with a case that had been filed in federal court. He had just received a discovery request involving Product Guild Limited (PGL), one of his biggest international clients. PGL was a paperless organization that stored everything electronically. There was a request for all the e-mails from the client for the past two years, all corporate correspondence, and a time deadline imposed by the rules of court. The senior attorney asked Mason if you could work for him as a part-time, independent paralegal to prepare a plan for handling this request. Mason agreed and asked you to begin working on a plan.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp the external link
