Court Declines to Preclude “Eyes On” Review for Privilege
Good v. Am. Water Works Co., Inc., No. 2:14-01374, 2014 WL 5486827 (S.D. W. Va. Oct. 29, 2014)
In this case, the parties made an effort to “craft an agreement respecting the handling of attorney-client and work product information inadvertently disclosed,” but disagreed regarding the proper procedure for identifying privileged information. Defendants sought to “’encourage the incorporation and employment of time-saving computer-assisted privilege review, while Plaintiffs propose[d] that the order limit privilege review to what a computer can accomplish, disallowing linear (aka ‘eyes on’) privilege review altogether.’” The court agreed with the defendants and entered an order allowing both computer-assisted and linear review, but invited the plaintiffs to file a second motion should the defendants’ methodologies result in unacceptable delays.
