Lessons · Law foundations · the tools of discovery
Discovery: the four ways each side sees what the other has
Discovery is the stage where the parties exchange information, using written questions, requests for documents, requests to admit facts, and questioning under oath.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
Most cases never reach a courtroom; they end when one side sees what the other has. The paralegal running the calendar of who owes what by when is running the part of the case that actually decides it.
How to think about it
Match the tool to what you need. A fact you want pinned down, a document you want produced, and an explanation you want to probe are three different jobs, and using the wrong tool wastes a round.
Worked example
Written questions, answered in writing under oath.Good for names, dates, positions and figures. The term is interrogatories.
A request that the other side hand over documents and records.Contracts, emails, invoices, photographs, whatever the case turns on.
A request that the other side admit a fact is true.Anything admitted stops being work for the trial.
Questioning a witness out loud, under oath, with a transcript taken.Follow-up questions are possible, which is what the written tools cannot do.
Your turn
Write the name for the out-loud questioning of a witness under oath before trial.
Questioning a witness out loud, under oath, before trial: a
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Asking for everything. A request with no edges gets an objection instead of an answer, and a round of discovery is lost to an argument the request created.