Document Unitization
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August 11, 2021Josh Gilliland’s Bow Tie Law Blog has an excellent discussion of several recent decisions governing document unitization. “Identifying Logical Document Breaks in Discovery Order” (Bowtielaw.com Aug. 8, 2021).
Proper document unitization maintains the organizational structure of the original documents. It is logical and facilitates use in litigation support platforms.
Improper unitization – jumbling a bunch of unrelated documents as a single large PDF – is an unsound practice.
As Josh points out, many ediscovery products have the ability to break an improperly unitized document into separate, logical documents. However, that may require paying a person to make those judgment calls.
Josh cited: Song v. Drenberg, Case No.18-cv-06283-LHK (VKD), at *8-9 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 11, 2019), Venture Corp. v. Barrett, No. 5:13-cv-03384-PSG, 2014 WL 5305575 at *3 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2014), and Core Distribution v. Oxgord Inc., No. 2:21-cv-01635-JAK (MAAx), 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146049, at *6 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 2, 2021).
