What does discovery mean in a lawsuit

And it takes a lot of time to ask for, collect, and review the sometimes thousands of documents that may be involved in a case. Discovery can be both formal and informal. In either case, the information that is gathered during discovery is not filed with the court. It is just shared with the other side in the lawsuit. Discovery is very complicated and often requires knowledge of evidence rules and other legal strategies.

It is often necessary to have a lawyer help you with discovery. If you are representing yourself in your case, discovery may be a good part of your case to let a limited-scope lawyer handle on your behalf. Find out more about limited-scope representation.

Informal investigation includes all information-gathering that you can do on your own working with cooperative people or organizations both before and after a lawsuit is filed.

You can do a lot of this informal investigation before the case even starts, and it can help you decide if you should even file a case. You may not be able to use everything you find out during this investigative process in court, but it can help you prepare your case. During the discovery process, lawyers can object to questions, requests for admissions, interrogatories, and other requests. If the other side does not agree with the objections and insists on getting the requested information, he or she can file motions in court to ask a judge to decide the discovery issues.

For the most part, discovery takes place outside the courtroom, with parties exchanging written information and sitting through face-to-face questioning sessions called "depositions". However, if the parties can't agree on what should be handed over in discovery, a judge may have to resolve the dispute. The kind of information that a party can force someone else to reveal -- is generally very broad, though there are some limits.

A party may ask for facts about the case, for the identity of others who may know something about the case, for documents relating to the case, and for inspection of physical objects or property connected to the dispute. Discovery can be used to seek information not only from the other party to the lawsuit, but also from people and businesses that aren't involved in the legal proceedings. The basic rule of discovery is that a party may obtain any information that pertains -- even slightly -- to any issue in the lawsuit, as long as the information is not "privileged" or otherwise legally protected see "Discovery Limits," below.

Here are some of the things lawyers often ask for in discovery:. Virtually any bit of information that might have even a slight connection to the lawsuit is fair game for discovery. But this enormous latitude sometimes leads to abuse. Lawyers might try to pry into subjects that have no legitimate significance for the lawsuit, or that are private and confidential, serving only to annoy or embarrass the parties. Fortunately, there are some legal limits on this kind of probing, and some protections to keep private material from being disclosed to the public.

Confidential conversations. Conversations between people engaged in certain relationships are given a special legal protection known as privilege. Courts and legislatures have decided that the free flow of confidential information in these relationships is so important that it must be protected, even though that information might be important to others in a lawsuit. Under the law, no one can be required to disclose any information, whether verbal or written, that was confidentially exchanged within the following relationships:.

Private matters. In recent years, courts have increasingly recognized that some aspects of personal life should remain private, beyond the reach even of lawyers. But the right to privacy is a fairly recent and still-developing legal notion. As a result, there is no clear definition of precisely what it covers -- and the extent of its protection varies considerably from state to state.

Roughly, the right to privacy protects a person from having to divulge information that is not obviously relevant to the lawsuit and is a matter that a person would not normally discuss or reveal to anyone outside of immediate family and intimate friends.

This might include issues such as:. Privacy rights of third parties. Courts are more willing to protect the privacy of third parties -- for example, witnesses, co-workers, or family members of a party -- than the privacy of parties to a lawsuit. Courts often put limits on how much a party can find out about someone who isn't involved in a lawsuit, reasoning that it isn't fair to invade the privacy of someone who was dragged into a dispute.

Keeping discovery information from the public. Generally, discovery devices include depositions, interogatories, requests for admissions, document production requests and requests for inspection. The formal procedures used by parties to a lawsuit to obtain information before a trial is called discovery. Discovery helps a party find out the other side's version of the facts, what witnesses know, and other evidence. Rules dictating the allowable methods of discovery have been set up by Congress for federal courts and by state legislatures for state courts.