I will refrain from excessive and abusive discovery.

Full Quote from the Texas Lawyer's Creed 

"I will refrain from excessive and abusive discovery."

In this age of technology it’s easy to push some button and whip out global discovery that asks for everything under the sun and then some. At first blush, this may seem like it saves a client time and money. But consider what happens if both sides do that.  Both parties have to locate, copy and produce unnecessary documents.  Both attorneys have to review the documents upon receipt.  Consider the time and cost to each party for attorney time to review and organize the documents.  Do you really need 20 years of bank statements?  Or do you need 5 years of bank statements and a specific document from 20 years ago?

Know your case and tailor your discovery requests to identify specific documents you need.  Don’t include a request for business documents if the parties never owned a business. Preparing for issuing and responding to discovery is as essential as preparing for trial.  Identifying the issues and the information you will need to prove your case, or rebut the opposing party’s case, will streamline the process and be more cost effective overall.  

Also consider minimizing the use of objections.  If a request legitimately requires an objection, use the specific objection that is most relevant to the request, and use a few as possible.  And be careful using “blanket” or “standard” objections.  If the request does not contain the phrases “each,” “every,” and “all,” don’t state that as an objection (yes, that happened.)

Like every duty to the client, the court and other attorneys, our responsibility in utilizing discovery should focus on the client’s true objectives and furthering the client’s goals.  We’ve probably all had a case that got under our skin or an opposing attorney who got us riled up, but the lawyers creed tells us that the desire to “hit them with everything we’ve got and object to everything-” takes a back seat to acting in the client’s best interest and maintaining our professionalism.

Submitted by Lisa K. Hoppes, Attorney at Law
Hurst, Texas