Module 5

Documents and review: bundles, disclosure and discovery, privilege, redaction and due diligence

Modern disputes and transactions generate documents by the thousand: emails, messages, contracts, spreadsheets, photographs, records. Somebody has to find them, sort them, read them and decide which can go to the other side, which must be withheld and which must be protected. That somebody is often a paralegal. The work can look mechanical, and it is some of the most consequential in a matter. A privileged document sent to the other side by mistake can damage a client’s case; a relevant document missed can lead to sanctions; a redaction that does not work can reveal a person’s private details. This module covers document control, bundles and indexes, the stages of a disclosure or discovery exercise, coding for relevance, privilege and sensitivity, redaction, quality control and the equivalent work in due diligence. The Document Review Coder in the labs lets you practise coding on invented documents. The rules differ by country and court, and the tool teaches the coding and the checks, not any one regime’s test.

General education on the work of a paralegal across legal systems, using invented people, firms and cases. It is not legal or career advice. The rules on what paralegals may do, on privilege, disclosure and the counting of time limits, and on qualifications differ between countries and change: check the rules that apply to you with your employer, the court and your regulator.