Examination for Discovery.

1. Discovery of Documents.

Immediately after the parties exchange all the pleadings, the parties are required to exchange affidavits of documents.  Parties are required to put all the documents pertinent to the issues of the litigation in three schedules. Schedule A lists all the documents that are in the party's possession, control or power and that the party does not object to producing.  Schedule B lists all the documents that are or were in party's control or power, but which the party objects to exchange because of the parties claim of privilege.  Schedule C lists the documents that were formerly in the party's possession, control or power, however are no longer in possession or control together with explanation on how the party lost possession or control of or power over the document together with the identification of the present location of the documents.

After having reviewed the pleadings, your lawyer must be able to identify the factual and legal issues pertinent to your litigation and explain the issues to you.  The lawyer will advice you to deliver all the documents to your lawyer's office.  It is a good idea for the client to prepare a table of content for the documents and organize the documents in accordance with the table of content to reduce time your lawyer puts into organizing the documents to substantially reduce your lawyer's next invoice.

Each party may be required to produce the documents on the request of the opposing party or to request the inspection of the opposing parties' documents.  The duty to list the documents and to produce such is an ongoing one, which means that the party has to provide other parties with an update on the newly discovered documents.

It is not a good idea not to disclose or not to produce the documents.  The penalties for non-disclosure/non-production vary from the prohibition to use the evidence in litigation to dismissal of your litigation matter.

2. Examination for Discovery.

Examination for Discovery is an out-court procedure where each party is examined under oath by the opposing parties' lawyers.  The examination is normally transcribed by a certified reporter and your lawyer can order a copy of the transcript from the reporter.

The discovery process generally has to purposes:

1. to obtain favourable evidence from the examined person and to introduce the transcript of such evidence at the time of trial, and

2. to find more information about the other party's story and witnesses to allow a lawyer to better prepare for the client's trial and to assess the client's chances to win the litigation matter.

It is important to carefully review the pleadings and all the available evidence before the discovery.  The examined party should provide a concise answer within the scope of the examining party's questions.  Under certain circumstances, the examined party's lawyer may intervene with objections to the examining lawyer's question with properly stated grounds for such objections.  The examined party may be required to make an undertaking to produce an answer or further documents after discovery.  It is possible to make a court motion for an order requiring the examined party to answer the question, to produce documents or to attend the additional examination for discovery.

Lawyer's Practice.