Doc Review Forum

[ixpresxi]

1. What is Doc Review?

2. What are typical tasks of a first year associate at a big firm?

[flyers05]

1. Document review is when an attorney sifts through about 10 different categories of documents- such as agreements, obligations, priorities & perfection, guaranties, real estate collateral, etc.- and compiles a list of information about each document that includes things such as: The specific provision of each document, when the doc. was executed and by whom, and the exceptions that any document may include. Each document will have a short paragraph describing these various aspects of the document.

Doc. review is very tedious because you're basically reading over about 100 different contracts, leases, and other documents with a fine-toothed comb to find the basic information in it. I'm a file clerk at a corporate law firm and I assemble the final "document review binders" which will have all of the documents organized in one place. It's pretty time consuming and monotonous for me to assemble the binders and edit the doc. review memorandums (which is where all the information is compiled), and I have the easy part. The type of doc. review I'm describing is for banking law.

2. Some first years do a lot of doc. review, others don't. It depends on a lot of different things. At my firm one of the first years does doc. reviews like nobody's business and another one- in a different practice group- is staffed off-site at a major bank doing some type of high-level audit of something or another.

[T14_Scholly]

In the litigation context, doc review can be different than what the above poster describes. First-year associates might do doc review, legal research, first drafts of briefs/pleadings, and deposition/hearing prep. Generally do they do some of the basic legwork so that the partners can focus on higher level practice of law (actually taking the depositions, arguing at the hearings, and discussing case strategy with the client).

[ixpresxi]

1. Document review is when an attorney sifts through about 10 different categories of documents- such as agreements, obligations, priorities & perfection, guaranties, real estate collateral, etc.- and compiles a list of information about each document that includes things such as: The specific provision of each document, when the doc. was executed and by whom, and the exceptions that any document may include. Each document will have a short paragraph describing these various aspects of the document.

Doc. review is very tedious because you're basically reading over about 100 different contracts, leases, and other documents with a fine-toothed comb to find the basic information in it. I'm a file clerk at a corporate law firm and I assemble the final "document review binders" which will have all of the documents organized in one place. It's pretty time consuming and monotonous for me to assemble the binders and edit the doc. review memorandums (which is where all the information is compiled), and I have the easy part. The type of doc. review I'm describing is for banking law.

2. Some first years do a lot of doc. review, others don't. It depends on a lot of different things. At my firm one of the first years does doc. reviews like nobody's business and another one- in a different practice group- is staffed off-site at a major bank doing some type of high-level audit of something or another.

attorneys do audits?

[thesealocust]

edit: never mind

[ixpresxi]

how much of a typical first-year's time at a big firm is spent doing tedious work such as doc review? what are the more interesting things first-years do? and at what point in biglaw do attorney's get to try cases? deal with clients? etc...