This guide breaks down the techniques, technologies, and tactical decisions that drive successful ediscovery searching, giving legal teams a complete operational playbook for ediscovery searches that are faster, smarter, and more legally sound.

You’ll learn our 3-step ediscovery search process, as well as techniques and best practices for:

Keyword search: Apply foundational techniques (exact phrases, wildcards, truncation) and industry-specific keywords to reduce noise and surface responsive documents.

Advanced search: Implement proximity searching, fuzzy logic/phonetic searching for typos, and Regular Expressions (Regex) to find patterned data (e.g., phone numbers).

Utilizing Boolean logic: Use fundamental operators (AND, OR, NOT) and advanced strategies like nested queries and proximity operators ($\text{/n}$ or $\text{NEAR/n}$) for precise searching.

Query optimization and efficiency: Apply iterative search methodology and performance tips (like scoping before using keywords) to enhance search speed and accuracy.

Quality control and validation: Use sampling, known document benchmarks, and cross-testing to validate search results and ensure defensibility.

Documentation and compliance: Understand how to document search processes (terms, custodians, date ranges) to meet Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) proportionality requirements.

Handling privileged material: Implement a privilege screening workflow using targeted terms, validation, and auditable logging procedures.

Troubleshooting common issues: Recognize and resolve technical challenges (corrupt data, performance bottlenecks) and search result anomalies.