Paralegal's Path
A record of who received, handled, evaluated and safeguarded evidence in a legal proceeding
What is chain of custody?
An out of court statement taken under oath of either a party or non party witness
What is a deposition?
Privilege that protects any information prepared by an attorney if that information is prepared in anticipation of litigation or for the purposes of trial
What is work-product privilege?
The process of uncovering information about pending litigation without the use of discovery tools
What is informal discovery?
Party asking for and obtaining the data
What is the ESI requester?
Communication by an attorney to a client telling the client's employees to stop the routine deletion of ESI
What is a litigation hold?
A request made by one party to another party in that law suit to undergo an examination regarding a condition that is at issue in the pending action
What is a request for physical or mental examination?
An agreement which is designed to protect confidential information, trade secrets and other secret data from being revealed in the discovery process.
What is a confidentiality agreement?
Conference held between the parties where a plan for discovery is developed and any agreements regarding timelines outside of the rules is reduced to writing.
Data that can be retrieved without unwarranted difficulty and unfair cost
What is reasonably accessible ESI?
Letter sent by an attorney to all opposing parties putting them on notice of their affirmative obligation to preserve ESI
What is a spoliation letter?
A request by a party to another party in a lawsuit to admit or deny the truthfulness of a fact or the genuineness of a piece of evidence
What is a request for admission?
Privilege which belongs to a client and prohibits communication between an attorney & client from being disclosed unless waived by the client.
What is attorney-client privilege?
Conference between the court and the parties to address the pleadings, pending motions, narrow the issues for trial, simplify the discovery process and schedule trial
What is a pretrial conference?
Data about data
What is metadata?
Statement required 90 days before trial outlining the opinion of and basis for any opinion which will be offered by a witness hired by a party for the purposes of litigation
What is an expert witness disclosure?
A request that a party or other individual involved in a lawsuit provide specific documents or other physical evidence to a party making the request. May also include the request to make entry upon land.
What is a request for production?
Ongoing obligation of the parties to update each other regarding discoverable information.
What is the duty to supplement?
If a party refuses to comply with a discovery request court intervention may be requested by filing this document
What is a Motion to Compel?
Technique for storing and protecting ESI with a third party which prevents the need to use hard drives or flash drives
What is cloud storage?
As a paralegal, your communication with another attorney or with a client of another attorney could be protected under this theory of privilege
What is common interest privilege?
Written questions which require written answers under oath and directed to a party in which another party seeks to gain information related to the litigation
What are interrogatories?
Exchange of information that must occur without request by the opposing party and within 14 days of the discovery conference.
What is an initial disclosure (or mutual disclosure)?
An order issued by the court that protects a party from revealing information, documents, data or other evidence to another party who has requested it.
What is a protective order?
An agreement which allows the parties to agree that privileges can be asserted after evidence has been sent to the party if the retriever discovers any privileged information has been sent
What is a clawback agreement?