Pre-Production Workflow Guide and Best Practices

This workflow guide describes how to best leverage Everlaw to support a smooth production process, even on a tight deadline. We recommend that you read through this document before you begin preparing for a production. When you're ready to create your production on Everlaw, you can read this article on creating productions.

For more information on productions in Everlaw, please see the help articles in our Productions section.

Table of Contents 

• Introduction
• 1. Get started: production tools
• 2. Create a protocol
• 3. Review documents for production
• 4. Perform pre-production QA
• Contact Everlaw for help with productions

Introduction

You can start preparing for a production as soon as you start a new project on Everlaw. This article describes preparing for a production in 4 steps.

1. Before you begin reviewing documents, you prepare your review space with codes, such as responsiveness and privilege codes, and production tools, like redaction stamps.
2. Create your production protocol. This sets up the configuration for a production, including the Bates prefix, the image format (PDF or TIFF), and any metadata fields to include in a load file.
3. Your team can start reviewing documents, using the codes you've already created and all of Everlaw's built-in review tools.
4. When review is done, the final step before producing is to use Everlaw's pre-production QA checks. These checks can help you troubleshoot any potential issues and make sure your documents are ready to produce. 

Read on for details on each of these steps

1. Get started: production tools

Required permission: Project Admin

When reviewing documents for production purposes, the first thing to do is to make sure Production Tools are turned on, which enables your reviewers to redact documents.

1. Go to Project Management > Project Settings.
2. Select the General tab and find Production Tools. Make sure they are toggled on.
3. [Optional] Configure your production codes. The code wizard walks you through setting up the codes you want reviewers to use throughout the lifecycle of review. If you don't want to use the code wizard, you can create your own categories and codes from the Codes tab. Learn more about configuring codes in our article on how to Administer Codes for Review. Below are some sample codes you can use:
   • Responsive and Not Responsive - You can use these codes to mark which documents are responsive to the production, or not. Make sure to review and code all family members if you are required to produce the entire family; auto-coding may be a useful feature for this purpose. 
   • Confidentiality: Codes in this category designate which documents should be stamped for confidentiality. 
   • Privilege and Privilege Type -You can use these coding categories to identify whether documents are privileged, and what type of privilege they have . You can also set up Attorney Client and Work Product codes to designate privilege types. 
   • Redaction Status: these codes are particularly helpful if you have different teams handle review and redaction. One team can identify documents needing redaction, which will then be assigned to the team performing redaction.
4. [Optional] Create redaction stamps. Redaction stamps allow reviewers to stamp information about a redaction on top of the redaction. Learn more about redaction stamps in our article on production tools

2. Create a protocol

Once your production tools are configured, create a production protocol. You can create a protocol on Everlaw as soon as the production protocol (ESI protocol) is negotiated, even before any data is loaded into your database.

When you create your protocol, set the criteria for documents that you want to produce based on relevant production codes configured in the section above. For example, if you are using the code “Responsive” to designate the documents to produce, input Coded: Responsiveness: Responsive as the production criteria for your protocol.

As part of creating a protocol, you decide whether to produce a placeholder for any privileged documents in your set. If placeholders are required, include all privileged documents in the production criteria search and specify how you want to handle them in the production protocol. 

Here are some benefits of creating your production protocol early:

• Keeps you informed of possible QA issues as they come up. The pre-production QA tool lists issues and suggests resolutions. Setting yourself up at the beginning to be informed of these issues gives you time to resolve them as they come up during review.
• You can produce periodically in rolling productions, instead of all documents at once
• Saves time as deadlines approach. If you have already set up your protocol, you can have a production running in just a few minutes. 
• Gives you the chance to see whether or not you need Everlaw to set up custom settings or fields. For example, a production protocol might require you to produce a field that is not in your project. In that event, Everlaw can add custom metadata fields to your project.

To learn more about creating a protocol on Everlaw, you can read Productions 1 of 3: Creating a Production Protocol.

3. Review documents for production

As your team is reviewing, make sure they follow a review protocol oriented toward your production goals. When they apply the appropriate production codes to your documents during review, it is seamless to:

• Gather documents for production
• Withhold privileged information
• Flag documents for customized stamping or redactions.

 

Learn more about Everlaw's review tools in our Document review documentation hub.

4. Perform pre-production QA

Everlaw automatically runs common quality assurance (QA) checks on the documents specified in your production criteria. You can resolve issues in the weeks leading up to your production date. 

Throughout the lifecycle of review, we recommend periodically checking back to your production protocol to check on any potential review or protocol set-up issues.

To check for any pre-production issues:

1. Go to Data Transfer > Productions.
2. In the Protocols tab, choose the relevant protocol in the Protocols tab
3. Take a look at any of the Protocol Warnings and Production Warnings. You can resolve them, or choose to produce the documents with or without issues with your production set.

To learn more about the pre-production QA tool, you can read this article about production quality assurance. 

Contact Everlaw for help with productions

If you have questions about producing documents, please contact your account lead or the Everlaw Support team (support@everlaw.com). Additional educational material can also be found in our Training Center.