In my experience, the one aspect of litigation that in-house counsel and claims examiners dislike the most is answering written discovery.  Considering how many times retailers, restaurants and hospitality companies must answer discovery, it is not surprising that is has become such a dreaded task.

Well I am here to make your life just a little bit easier.  And the best part – you don’t have to do anything but expect more from your panel counsel.  The point of having panel counsel is, or should be, so that you have a few attorneys who know your company and know how you like to handle claims and litigation.  The attorneys that make up your panel counsel list should be looking for ways to make your life easier.  A great way to do that is to simplify answering written discovery.

Written discovery should be completed or mostly completed when it first reaches your desk.  To ensure this happens at your company, follow these recommendations:

• Expect panel counsel to keep a database of information and materials. This is my number one recommendation for making written discovery easier. The database should include anything and everything that is typically requested during written discovery including: policies, procedures, manuals, leases, contracts, certificates of insurance and insurance policies. Once you produce such a document to panel counsel, you should never be asked to produce it again. The database should include not only current materials but older versions as well, since those could be relevant depending on the year of the incident.
• Give panel counsel authority to contact certain internal departments. Once panel counsel is chosen and entrusted to represent your company, they should be trusted to directly contact certain internal departments to obtain information for written discovery. Such departments could be human resources, security/loss prevention, maintenance and property management. Be sure to introduce the people in those departments to your panel counsel, even if it’s just through email. You can also require panel counsel to include you on any emails with those departments when requests are being made for discovery information. The key is that panel counsel contacts those departments, obtains the information and drafts the answers to written, not you.
• Expect panel counsel to obtain any necessary information from the incident location. Often times, written discovery requests information that is specific to the property where the incident took place and only the people at that property can provide the correct information. In-house counsel and claims examiners should need to make those phone calls. If the incident location is local, panel counsel should visit the site, meet the people involved in the case, become familiar with the incident area and obtain any information or documents needed to answer written discovery. This should all be done before oral discovery begins anyway, so it only makes sense that counsel also obtains the information for written discovery. To assist with this, be sure to give panel counsel updated property information as you obtain it yourself.
• At the beginning of each year or term, provide panel counsel with the insurance terms for the next year. Every single set of written discovery issued to a defendant asks about insurance coverage. Instead of giving this information to counsel with each lawsuit, provide it once a year and expect panel counsel to remember it.

The more you keep panel counsel in the loop about company information, the easier your life will be.  If you receive a new policy or document that will likely be relevant in civil litigation, send it out.  Have an email group set-up so it’s just one click, and everyone receives updated information and documents.  Follow these tips and you will have more time and less stress.