When there is a large number of documents, this solution very quickly shows its weakness. One solution is to have bilingual lawyers read the non-English documents and write a short English summary in a searchable Database . Electronic Files Europe is running behind America in its recognition that e-mail letters are correspondence and constitute Documents for the purposes of US litigation. Sometimes the only clean copies of early drafts of letters and agreements will be those on disc. Policies for the retention of electronic files, whether e-mail or drafts, tend to be left to the creativity of the secretaries and becomes rather ad hoc.
Confusion increases as more and more executives deal with their own electronic post.
Any electronic filing system that departmental secretaries could have imposed gets lost in the speed of the day to day business. If you thought it was hard to get them to open their file drawers for you, just wait 'til you ask to have a look in their laptop. Don't wait too long to start organising the copying and scanning operations and don't ignore the supervision of the people doing the work. Very few copy shops work overnight and even fewer have ever had any experience with US litigation. Almost no one in the scanning industry is accustomed to the volume and sensitivity and timing of large scale document processing for litigation.