By Tara Byers, Payne Consulting Group

The investigative phase of a lawsuit is appropriately termed "discovery," because it provides an opportunity to explore all of the facts in a case. It gives you and the other party's attorneys the chance to examine the evidence, determine the basis of each claim, and identify any supporting evidence.

Because the discovery phase provides only a limited window of opportunity, keeping track of deadlines and ensuring that information is sent and received within required time frames is critical. You can use Outlook 2003 to assist in the discovery process by using tools that help you keep track of important deadlines, tasks, appointments, and messages.

Creating tasks and appointments

It would be difficult for you to stay on top of the discovery process without the ability to create tasks and other calendar items such as appointments. You can use Outlook 2003 to create tasks and other calendar items and to assign reminders for due dates, categories, and priority settings.

Manage action items by using Tasks

Managing time and action items effectively is critical during discovery. The Tasks feature in Outlook 2003 provides you with the ability to create and manage the list of details you need to keep track of. You can also create tasks and assign them to other people in your firm, and then monitor their progress.

To create a task, point to New on the File menu, and then click Task. You can then:

• Define the task
• Set the recurrence of the task
• Assign the task to others
• Set due dates
• Set reminders

The Tasks feature centralizes and automates your to-do items during critical windows in the discovery process. No more "sticky notes" or paper reminders that can be misplaced.

Control your schedule by using Calendar

During the discovery phase, you schedule appointments, depositions, client-attorney meetings, and internal-practice meetings. The Calendar features in Outlook provide you with the power to stay on top of your busy schedule by viewing your calendar by the day, week, or month; by setting reminders; and more.

Click "About Calendar" in the See Also section of this article to learn how to:

• Create appointments and events
• Organize meetings
• View group schedules
• View calendars side by side
• Link to calendars on Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services 2.0 sites

Use message flags to prioritize

You can use message flags as part of the discovery process to provide visual indicators or timed reminders to follow up to e-mail messages from co-counsel, clients, or opposing parties. For example, you might set a message flag with a reminder to reply to an e-mail message from an expert witness or opposing counsel.

Let's say you receive a message from co-counsel requesting a document you are working on, and you need to respond — but you're in the middle of a phone call. A response is required by Friday at the latest. You can leave the message in your Inbox as a reminder to yourself — if it weren't for the 408 messages that are already there.

This is where flags come in. Just open the message, click Follow Up, and set:

• The action to take (type your own or choose from options such as call, review, and reply).
• The date and time to get a reminder.
• The color of the flag.

  If you work on multiple cases, you can use color-coded flags to identify messages for a specific case, and even add labels to colored flags. You can then search for flags by color. For example, if you assigned a blue flag to e-mail action items related to a specific case, you would search only for flags that are blue.

Here is the best part: Adding a flag causes a message to appear automatically in your For Follow Up Search Folder, which appears in the Favorite Folders pane in Outlook. The message remains located in your Inbox, but the message is also visible in this Search Folder for quick access to your e-mail to-do list.

Now you won't forget to respond to co-counsel by Friday — the message is listed in the For Follow Up Search Folder, and you've also set a reminder to yourself to respond by Friday.

Controlling the flow of e-mail messages by using Search Folders

If you're in the middle of the discovery process, it's important to be able to cut through your incoming e-mail messages to get to the key information related to a case. You probably don't have time to invest in scrolling through lists of messages or scanning headings to determine what's important. Moving messages into folders is one way to keep things organized, but let's be honest — this is a chore that isn't always easy to keep up.

You might have used rules in the past to automatically route messages from certain recipients, or about certain subjects, to folders that you created. (For more information about creating rules, check the See Also section of this article.) The main difference between rules and Search Folders is that rules perform a lasting action on a message, such as moving it from one location to another.

Search Folders, on the other hand, are a way to organize messages without actually moving them. You saw Search Folders in action in the discussion about flags. Read on to find out how to create custom Search Folders of your own.

Create a Search Folder to find messages related to your case

Let's say that you are currently working on the discovery process for a case concerning Contoso Pharmaceuticals. Any e-mail messages containing the word Contoso are ones that you need to review immediately — but you are getting a barrage of e-mail about other issues, and time is of the essence. To solve this problem, you can create a Search Folder for Contoso Pharmaceuticals that displays only these e-mail messages automatically — without moving anything from your Inbox.

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Search Folders.
2. In the New Search Folder dialog box, scroll to the end of the Select a Search Folder list, and under Custom, select Create a custom Search Folder.
3. Click Choose, and then in the Custom Search Folder dialog box, type a name for your folder in the Name box. (For this example, name your Search Folder Contoso Pharmaceuticals.)
4. Click Criteria.
5. In the Search Folder Criteria dialog box, type Contoso in the Search for the words box on the Messages tab.
6. In the In box, select subject field and message body.
7. Click OK three times.

Your new custom Search Folder for Contoso Pharmaceuticals is now listed under Search Folders in the Navigation Pane.

When you receive a message with the word "Contoso" anywhere in the heading or body, it is listed in the Contoso Pharmaceuticals Search Folder — but remains located in the Inbox.

 Messages containing the search criterion "Contoso" are listed in the Contoso Pharmaceuticals Search Folder ...

 ... but are still located in the Inbox.

In short, Search Folders help you cut right to messages about the discovery process at hand, without requiring you to scan or organize e-mail as it comes in. Best of all, Search Folders leave your Inbox intact, so you can organize messages yourself when (or if) you find the time.

Using tools to help with the discovery process

Litigators typically require more hours in the day than are available. This is especially true during the busy discovery phase of a case. Outlook 2003 provides you with tools to streamline and organize tasks, appointments, messages, and other items that play such an important part of uncovering evidence about the other party's case.

About the author   Tara Byers is Vice President of Development for Payne Consulting Group, a software training and development company headquartered in Seattle, Washington.