Source: https://bowtielaw.wordpress.com/category/search-terms/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 05:14:00+00:00

Document:
The Plaintiffs and Defendants in a SEC case highlight the importance of proportionality between asymmetrical parties. In such cases, one side has all of the electronically stored information for discovery requests; the other side does all the requesting. However, the smaller party can have an extremely high burden reviewing any produced ESI, especially if searchable features have been removed.
Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in City of Sterling Heights Gen. Emples. Ret. Sys. v. Prudential Fin., (an opinion not for publication) did a great job balancing the proportionality interests between a motion to add additional search terms and custodians to the dispute.
The Plaintiffs sough to add between 22 to 45 additional custodians for the Defendants to add to their discovery search. The Requesting Party made a strong argument for the additional custodians, including a chart of the custodians with the factual basis for expanding the scope of discovery. The parties had already agreed to 66 custodians. City of Sterling Heights Gen. Emples. Ret. Sys. v. Prudential Fin., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110712, *4-5; 8.
The Court denied adding the majority of the additional custodians, explaining, “Neither plaintiffs nor the Court can know with certainty, of course, whether searches of the additional custodians’ ESI will yield unique, noncumulative documents.” Sterling Heights, at *9. The Court further explained that it was satisfied that the vast majority of the custodians likely had duplicate information. Id.
Judge Wettre drove home her proportionality analysis with the following: “the Court is cognizant of the sizeable costs to Prudential involved in the searching, review and production of information from each additional custodian. Although Prudential is a large corporation with substantial resources, the Court should not be – and is not-insensitive to these costs.” Id.
Although the number of agreed custodians is already substantial, the resources and personnel at Prudential devoted to the Verus audit and related issues also seem to have been immense. Therefore, it is not surprising that more than 66 Prudential employees may have been heavily involved in the issues relating to this case and may thus have relevant, noncumulative information. Moreover, allowing plaintiffs a moderate number of additional custodians does not seem disproportionate to the size and scale of this action. The Court understands that there are electronic de-duping tools that may be utilized to limit defendants’ review and production of duplicative documents, reducing some of the burden on Prudential of producing information from additional custodians.
The Court explained that permitting the plaintiffs to select an additional 10 custodians “would balance fairly plaintiffs’ rights to relevant discovery against the costs and burden to defendants of providing that discovery.” Sterling Heights, at *10-11.
The question of adding four new search terms was decided swiftly. The Defendants challenged adding more search terms, claiming they had already produced 1.5 million pages of discovery. Sterling Heights, at *11. The Plaintiffs responded that over half of the 1.5 million pages were “completely unusable redacted pdfs of Excel spreadsheets.” Id.
The Court held that the four search terms appeared designed to target relevant information. Moreover, the Plaintiff noted that if the Defendant had produced a hit count that showed the terms had an “egregiously large” number of “hits,” the Plaintiffs would have considered narrowing the terms. Id.
The Court does not have before it information on which it is persuaded that it should deny these four additional terms because they would produce an unduly large number of results likely to be irrelevant to this case. While the Court does recognize that defendant has agreed to a large number of search terms, that is not sufficient basis in and of itself to deny plaintiffs the four additional search terms they seek.
If proportionality cases were rock concerts, this case has a few “gavel drop” moments. It is great to see a Judge who incorporated proportionality throughout the entire opinion.
Proportionality arguments should not be made out of thin air. The Plaintiffs made a noble effort providing a chart with each additional custodian explaining the factual basis for expanding the scope of discovery for each individual. While they only got 10 additional custodians, this was an excellent way to explain to a Court the value of adding custodians to decide the merits of a case.
The search term arguments for both parties could have been stronger if the proposed search terms were supported by affidavits from expert witnesses. To be fair, the arguments might have been, but the tone of the opinion sounds like the arguments did not include expert affidavits. There are many lawyers who think that because they can conduct case law research that “search terms” in discovery are the same thing. That is a dangerous assumption.
I strongly encourage lawyers to work with eDiscovery consultants to help identify the concepts to identify electronically stored information. Advanced analytics from clustering of similar files to email threading, to visual analytics, to predictive coding all can help identify responsive files. Lawyers should think beyond “search terms” to concepts in order to search discovery.
Finally, I feel greatly for the Plaintiffs who had to review non-searchable PDF’s of Excel files. There are ways to redact Excel files that would require agreements between the parties, but it can be done. This would keep Excel files in native format and avoid spreadsheets exploding into multiple page nightmares.
In closing, a hat tip to the Judge and both parties on their well argued positions and the opinion.
Responding to a discovery request marries the practice of law to search technology. Rule 26 Conferences in Federal Court often have parties spending a significant amount of time exchanging “search terms” to determine the most effective discovery protocol for a case.
For those additional/modified terms to which the producing/responding party objects on the basis of overbreadth or identification of a disproportionate number of irrelevant documents, that party will provide the requesting party with certain quantitative metrics and meet and confer to determine whether the parties can agree on modifications to such terms. Among other things, the quantitative metrics include the number of documents returned by a search term and the nature and type of irrelevant documents that the search term returns. In the event the parties are unable to reach agreement regarding additional/modified search terms, the parties may file a joint letter regarding the dispute.
The Defendants were not keen on this plan, because the sampling protocol would result in production of irrelevant information.
The Court pointed out the Plaintiff’s common sense argument: a random sample that shows that a search is returning a high proportion of irrelevant documents is a bad search and needs to be modified to improve its precision in identifying relevant documents.
The Court further stated that the proposed sampling procedure was designed to prevent irrelevant documents from being reviewed and would obviate motion practice over search terms.
The Defendants’ concerns did not fall on deaf ears. The Court explained that the Defendants could remove any irrelevant files from the random qualitative sample for any reason as long as the removed files were replaced with an equal number of randomly generated files.
The parties agreed that the procedure for qualitative sampling shall apply only after exhaustion of the quantitative evaluation process.
Irrelevant documents in the sample shall be used only for the purpose of resolving disputes regarding search terms in this action, and for no other purpose in this litigation or in any other litigation; those irrelevant documents, as well as any attorney notes regarding the sample, shall be destroyed within fourteen days of resolution of the search term dispute, with such destruction confirmed in an affidavit by counsel.
In addition, the court held that access to the random sample shall be limited to one attorney from each law firm designated co-lead class counsel for Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs and Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (total of six attorneys).
Plaintiffs could invoke the random sampling process with respect to no more than five search terms per defendant group.
A defendant family would run one combined search for up to five disputed terms, rather than creating separate samples for each disputed term. The parties were ordered to meet and confer regarding the sample size, as well as the overall limit on the number of sample documents generated per defendant family.
This search protocol was very specific on sampling. Moreover, it also highlights how complex “search” can be in litigation. However, it also highlights the danger of only using “search terms” in discovery.
“Search terms” are recognized as easily being both over and under inclusive. As such, there is no meet and confer that will ever determine every possible search term. If there were, ESI Protocols would like the Napoleonic Code of Discovery.
The issue with discovery is determining how to find the ESI that is relevant to the claims and defenses of a lawsuit. The first steps include determining the key players in the litigation, the date ranges, how they communicated, and terms of art that they used. The context of communications should go beyond “search terms,” to what are the concepts at issue in the lawsuit so today’s eDiscovery software can truly be used as “technology-assisted review” to help lawyers find responsive ESI.
 In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litig., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22915, 48-49 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 24, 2015).
 Id., at 54, citing Moore v. Publicis Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182, 191 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).
 Id., at 54, citing Moore at 191, citing William A. Gross Constr. Assocs., Inc. v. Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co., 256 F.R.D. 134, 136 (S.D.N.Y. 2009).
Attorneys have been fighting over search terms for years. Many times this fight is without expert advice, search efficiency reports, or any evidence to support arguments for or against proportionality.
I also think fighting over “search terms” is actually the wrong fight. The focus should be on search concepts and leveraging advanced analytics to identify relevant ESI.
Lutzeier v. Citigroup Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11727, 20-21 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 2, 2015).
The Defendant argued that the search terms were “so common and generic” that the results would include a “significant volume of irrelevant documents that it is not sufficient to justify the additional burden.” Lutzeier, at *21. To be fair to the Defendant, they had a strong argument that on their face the Plaintiff’s search terms look broad.
The Defendant argued that the search terms for “Fred,” “Lutzeier,” “LOIS,” “COSMOS,” and “Champney” would produce the relevant ESI. Moreover, adding the proposed terms would add an additional 555,909 files, therefore the burden “greatly outweighs the likelihood that these searches will yield additional documents not already captured by Defendants’ search protocol.” Lutzeier at *21, citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(C)(iii)).
The Court agreed with the Defendants that the search terms were generic, excepted at the search term “consent order.” As such, the Court denied the Plaintiff’s request for additional searches, with the exception of one additional search term. Lutzeier at *21-22.
I do not like second guessing Courts, but I really do not like this result. We have many types of advance analytics for searching that go far beyond “search terms.” We can see communication patterns; identify date ranges; and key players making relevant communications. Moreover, the issue of finding responsive information is not one of “search terms,” but of “search concepts.” What sort of information supports a party’s claims or defense? What is relevant to that case? This goes beyond determining specific words to use, but specific concepts to find relevant ESI.
One of the challenges I see from discussing eDiscovery with litigators, is that many lawyers think that because they can perform legal research that they are competent to conduct advance searches of electronically stored information. While a podiatrist is competent to treat an ingrown toenail, that doctor is not competent to perform brain surgery (and the brain surgeon is not the right doctor to perform surgery on a broken ankle). Each is an expert in their respective fields. The same applies to lawyers and eDiscovery experts.
My friends who are eDiscovery experts would have suggestions on the Plaintiff’s search terms and counter arguments to the Defense objections (after sufficient education on the facts of the case). I’d wager they would develop search strings to narrow the Plaintiff’s search terms based on the Defendant’s search terms.
Maybe the parties had expert reports supporting their positions, but I cannot tell from the Court order (the fact the Defendant had an exact count of ESI files shows a factual argument was made to the Court, perhaps based on a search efficiency report). Regardless, there are ways to leverage the technology we have to find relevant and responsive ESI. I believe other options could have been used in this case, but would need more information to recommend a strategy.
Rosemary Woods was not involved in this document production.
In motion practice over the adequacy of a production, the Plaintiffs were able to show that the Producing Party did not produce 18 email messages that were produced by a third-party.
As such, the Plaintiff sought production of search efficiency reports that was conducted as an audit and investigation by two law firms for the Producing Party. The goal was to identify the missing discovery from the production, opposed to the specifics of the Producing Party’s discovery efforts. Freedman v. Weatherford Int’l, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133950, at *7-8 (S.D.N.Y.Sept. 12, 2014).
Judge Francis stated that “suggested remedy is not suited to the task,” because only three of the eighteen email messages would have been identified by the search terms used in the audit investigation. Freedman, at *8.
The Plaintiff’s argument focused on that the information produced by third-parties should have been produced by the Producing Party, opposed to whether the requested searches would have identified the missing information. Freedman, at *9. According to the Defendants, only one unproduced document would have been identified from the requested searches. Id.
The Producing Party had reviewed “millions of documents” and produced “hundreds of thousands” of documents that totaled nearly 4.4 million pages. Citing to the “proportionality rule” from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court invoked the maxim the Rules “do not require perfection.” Freedman, at *9, citing Moore v. Publicis Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182, 191 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).
The Court stated it was “unsurprising that some relevant documents may have fallen through the cracks;” however, the remedy sought would unlikely cure any production defects. As such, the Court denied the production of the search report. Freedman, at *9-10.
Judge Francis’ opinion puts very proportional view of challenging production adequacy: you first have to demonstrate a production is inadequate and then demonstrate the remedy makes sense. Proving three email messages were missing out of thousands does not justify conducting searches that would not produce any missing information. The remedy has to be proportional to problem.
Proportionality is a balancing of interests. Do 18 missing emails out of thousands justify new searches? Well, if those 18 emails were the key smoking gun messages, maybe. Ask Rosemary Woods or Lois Lerner about missing information.
The message I take away from Judge Francis’ opinion, is that if you have emails from a third-party that show a production deficiency, you have to offer a proportional remedy. If the offer is for additional searches that would only produce one or two of the missing emails, that is not a proportional remedy. Alternatively, if you proffer search terms that would have generated “hits” on 17 out of 18, maybe that would tip the scales in favor of running additional searches. At the end of the day, the effort sought has to have value to the case and not be an experiment in futility.
One lesson from United States v. Univ. of Neb. at Kearney, is that maybe you should take depositions of key parties and use interrogatories to find out relevant information to your case before asking for over 40,000 records that contain the personal information of unrelated third-parties to a lawsuit.
The case is a Fair Housing Act suit involving claims that students were prohibited or hindered from having “emotional assistance animals in university housing when such animals were needed to accommodate the requesting students’ mental disabilities.” United States v. Univ. of Neb. at Kearney, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118073, 2 (D. Neb. Aug. 25, 2014).
A protracted battle over the scope of discovery broke out between the parties. The Defendants argued the search, retrieval, and review for responsive discovery was too expansive and would have been unduly burdensome. Kearney, at *5-6. As the Government’s search requests included “document* w/25 policy,” you can see the Defendant’s point on having broad hits to search terms. Kearney, at *20.
The Government’s revised search terms would have 51,131 record hits, which would have cost $155,574 for the Defendants to retrieve, review, and produce the responsive ESI. Kearney, at *5-6. This would have been on top of the $122,006 already spent for processing the Government’s requests for production. Kearney, at *7.
The Court noted that the Government’s search terms would have required production of ESI for every person with disability, whether they were students or contractors. Kearney, at *6-7. The Government argued the information was necessary, and justified, in order to show discriminatory intent by the Defendants. Id.
The Defendants wanted the scope of the discovery requests narrowed to the “housing” or “residential” content, which would have resulted in 10,997 responsive records. Kearney, at *7.
The Government did not want to limit the scope of discovery and recommended producing all the ESI subject to a clawback agreement [notice not a protective order] for the Government to search the ESI. The Defendants argued such an agreement would violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act by disclosing student personal identifiable information without their notice and consent. Kearney, at *8.
Motion practice followed with the Defendant requesting cost shifting to the Government for conducting searches, the use of predictive coding software, and review hosting fees. Kearney, at *8-9.
The Court ordered the parties to answer specific discovery questions, which the Government did not answer, on “information comparing the cost of its proposed document retrieval method and amount at issue in the case, any cost/benefit analysis of the discovery methods proposed, or a statement of who should bear those costs.” Kearney, at *9.
The public and the university’s student population may be understandably reluctant to request accommodations or voice their concerns about disparate or discriminatory treatment if, by doing so, their private files can be scoured through by the federal government for a wholly unrelated case. The government’s reach cannot extend that far under the auspices of civil discovery; at least not without first affording all nonparties impacted with an opportunity to consent or object to disclosure of information from or related to their files.
The Court stated it would not order the production of over 51,000 files with a clawback order. Moreover, the cost to review all of the ESI exceeded the value of the request. Kearney, at *19.
Searching for ESI is only one discovery tool. It should not be deemed a replacement for interrogatories, production requests, requests for admissions and depositions, and it should not be ordered solely as a method to confirm the opposing party’s discovery is complete. For example, the government proposes search terms such as “document* w/25 policy.” The broadly used words “document” and “policy” will no doubt retrieve documents the government wants to see, along with thousands of documents that have no bearing on this case. And to what end? Through other discovery means, the government has already received copies of UNK’s policies for the claims at issue.
The Court further stated that “absent any evidence that the defendants hid or destroyed discovery and cannot be trusted to comply with written discovery requests, the court is convinced ESI is neither the only nor the best and most economical discovery method for, and depositions should suffice—and with far less cost and delay.” Kearney, at *21.
This case has significant privacy interests, but at its core the issue is one of proportionality. What was the cost of discovery and its benefit? In the end, the cost of expansive search terms that impacted the third party rights of others, outweighed the benefit of the discovery to the case.
The fact we have amazing search technology that can search electronic information does not mean we can forget how to litigate. The use of “search terms” cannot swallow the actual claims of a case.
It is heartening to see a Court say no to the data of unrelated third parties being enveloped into a discovery production. While there are many ways to show discrimination, requesting the electronically stored information, protected by Federal and most likely state law, of third parties should give any Court pause.
The use of predictive coding to focus the scope of discovery, or visual analytics to identify relevant information, or clustering to organizing similar information is fantastic technology to expedite review. However, the fact that technology exists still means lawyers have to use requests for admissions, interrogatories, and have requests narrowly tailored for responsive ESI.

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