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If you’re starting out with a career in law, it’s likely that you’ll be looking for your first role. Typically, temporary paralegal positions are a great way to start. Most large law firms will have document review departments, or you can be hired by an agency to dedicate your time to the firm on a document review project. It’s no secret that document reviews can be lengthy and that many who will enter the profession may not be entirely sure what it consists of. In this blog post, I’ll explore what a document review is and the tips you need to start performing a document review.

Document review

What exactly is a document review? Well, it’s where each party reviews documents that have been disclosed using various electronic software that’s relevant to disputes and investigations. The document review is a phase of the litigation process that involves reviewing hundreds of documents for specific terms and evidence. Sometimes, it can be common for a document review to take place in person. During this period, each party can request high volumes of documents to be reviewed. A document review can help to uncover factual and legal issues that could alter the case strategy.

Tips for a successful document review

• As a document review paralegal or lawyer, you must ensure that you pay close attention to detail and accuracy. It’s essential to analyse closely and check that the information you require is contained within the documents provided. This can be done by ensuring the document review meets the needs of the clients and the legal requirements.
   
• When completing a document review, the goal is to determine which documents are relevant to your client’s case. The goal should be to identify the documents that’ll help your clients’ case. But you can’t do this without also identifying which documents present a risk. To identify which documents are relevant to your client’s case, make sure you understand the facts of the case and the strategy.
   
• Ensure that you not only review the relevance of the document, but also check for the privilege. It’s critical to review documents to check whether they’re privileged and they contain any sensitive or confidential information. If a document has been identified during an internal review, you can add it to the privileged documents list.
   
• Point three leads on to my next tip – get comfortable with the tagging criteria to categorise the documents. It can also be helpful to make a summary of the documents and highlight the key points in the document to identify important information and documents better.
   
• As you’ll be sifting through high volumes of documents, don’t be afraid to double-check things to minimise the errors or missing documents that can have an impact on the client’s case. This can help prevent mistakes and ensure that documents are accurate.

Looking to the future

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) will allow document reviews to be performed automatically in an accurate and timely manner. AI-powered document reviews identify the key terms and issues by identifying and analysing relevant documents. This can reduce time in the litigation process and free up paralegals (and trainees) to perform more complex tasks.