Courts Address "Discovery About Discovery": Part II

Last week's Privilege Point described a court's complicated approach to lawyers' deposition preparation sessions and adversaries' efforts to determine if the preparation refreshed a witness's recollection. That court acknowledged that the work product doctrine generally protects lawyers' "selection of materials to be covered during a preparation session." Estate of Jaquez v. City of New York, No. 10 Civ. 2881 (KBF), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148717, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 10, 2014).

Three days later, however, a North Carolina state court dealt with an adversary's interrogatory asking that litigants "identify all documents that [they] reviewed and/or relied upon in responding to the . . . interrogatories." Nat'l Fin. Partners Corp. v. Ray, 2014 NCBC 49 ¶ 41 (N.C. Super. Ct. Oct. 13, 2014). The court held that "in merely seeking identification of documents, [the interrogatory] requests only factual information" that did not deserve protection under either