Because we're thoughtlessly responding to the queries, based on the litigation team's analysis of the discovery requests, document reviews always generate absurd results. When I say "thoughtlessly" I mean that it isn't up to me to interpret what I've been told; if it meets the criteria, it's in. Whether it makes sense? Totally different question.
For example, if I was on the case of Barbie v. Bratz (yeah, I know it's Mattell v. whoever manufactures the Bratz dolls and Barbie is a jealous bitch because Bratz were outselling her), reviewing the Bratz materials, it's very likely that any mention of Barbie or Mattell would be responsive. Even if it was a newsletter from the Barbie fan club. Or Amazon update about a Barbie sale. Barbie birthday cake? It's in. These are the types of absurdities about which I speak; I know that the planning related to somebody's child's Barbie birthday party is non-responsive, but under the rules with which I have been provided, it's responsive. There's always something of this nature during a document review, whether it's travel plans mentioning a responsive hotel, mention of Euro Disney (which might be generated by a controversy over Disney or over Euros), or the appearance of a weekly M&M newsletter.*
Sometimes people ask whether the absolute junk responsive items really are responsive. We're usually told yes. That could change later, when someone at a higher level in the food chain starts examining the documents and asks the partner about these incredibly responsive documents. At that point, we might be told not to include certain types of documents, but only after it's far too late and the third-level reviewers have to screen them out instead of just verifying that the document review group included the appropriate information.
There's a fine line between responding to the discovery request and dumping documents. I'm not sure what it is; by excluding even the junk documents that are per se responsive based on discovery requests, a firm risks accusations of withholding; including the junk documents could lead to allegations of document dumping. Then again, with the law firmly believing that what matters are the words of a document on its face, this could leave you in the did not! did too! zone.
It's quite likely that the attorneys formulating discovery requests are thinking of the types of documents in which they're interested which will be generated by the discovery request and don't give a thought to completely useless items also generated by the same document request. Meanwhile, until I'm told otherwise, if it's responsive, though completely junk, it's in.
*examples have no relation to any reviews on which I have worked.
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