lesosn 6 - discovery Flashcards
In the UK, the process of discovery is referred to as …
disclosure
Why is ‘discovery’ considered to such an important part of the legal system?
Discovery encourages parties to choose settlement, ending the litigation before the trial, or before the end of the trial since both parties know what evidence is being brought into court before the actual trial.
Discovery aims to make the trial process itself fairer and more just, as the both parties are aware of all of the relevant evidence relating to the lawsuit and have time to adequately analyze all the evidence available to both sides in order to put forward a well-informed argument.
It increases exponentially the lawyers billable hours.
In the UK, the system of pre-trial evidence sharing is not as extensive as in the USA, however, the UK does allow a lawyer to make a request for what?
demand for particulars
As part of discovery, a face-to-face interview of a party or witness done under oath is called a ….
deposition
Remember: These depositions are taken under oath, so the transcripts of them can be used in court to “impeach” a witness, when the witness is saying something in court under oath that is different than what he or she had said under oath at the deposition.
This is a key way to find out the accuracy and voracity of the witness.
As part of discovery, when one side asks other side to present copies of written documents, emails, photos and similar items that reveal the evidence at play in a case are …
request for production of documents (RPDs)
As part of discovery, written questions by lawyers that are presented to the opposing parties and must be answered under oath are …
Interrogatories
also called by lawyers “rogs”
As part of discovery, these seek to get a party in the case to admit some wrongdoing or the accuracy of a particular statement of fact. These requests are generally used to save time and to narrow the issues that have to be proved at trial and are called …
Request for admission
The basic rule of discovery is that a party may obtain any information that pertains – even slightly – to any issue in the lawsuit, as long as the information is not -privileged- or otherwise legally protected.
Which of the following is NOT fair game in the discovery process:
Health or body issues / sexuality, sexual practices, or sexual partners / spiritual or religious beliefs, and immediate family relationships.
Discovery does have some limits!
For example, in recent years, courts have increasingly recognized that some aspects of personal life should remain private, beyond the reach even of lawyers.
But the right to privacy is a fairly recent and still-developing legal notion. As a result, there is no clear definition of precisely what it covers – and the extent of its protection varies considerably from state to state.
Roughly, the right to privacy protects a person from having to divulge information that is not obviously relevant to the lawsuit and is a matter that a person would not normally discuss or reveal to anyone outside of immediate family and intimate friends.
If a document requested during discovery contains information that falls into one of these excluded categories, but at the same time, has some information on it which is not excluded, the document must still be handed over:
However, the portions that are excluded can be blacked out. The blacking out of a document in this manner is called …
redaction
