How to manage discovery better?
I’m a rising 3L and interning in a DA’s office this summer. I should soon be able to appear in court, but this far I have been basically managing discovery for some cases than have been assigned to me, observing a lot, and doing the very occasional mini research assignment.
I like it so far, but it feels like I’m not doing much that’s substantive.
Which brings me to my question. Given that the vast majority of what I’ve been doing outside of observing is “managing” discovery, I’d like to know how I can do this better, best practices, ways to be more efficient.
I will say this is a pretty tedious part of the job and appears to require no substantive legal reasoning and is virtually entirely administrative, but I understand it’s important.
I fill out a discovery request form and give it to our paralegal to reach out to the police prosecutor or other entity (eg the DMV) for the discovery I’ve checked off on the discovery request form. Over time, the discovery starts coming in electronically or physically. I scan and upload the physical discovery. I then share the discovery with the defense attorney on the case.
The main frustration is that discovery does not come in promptly and almost always I will have to follow up by reaching out to the police prosecutor myself to ask again for what we previously requested. Then sometimes what we get is not what we asked for or it is unclear if it is what we asked for, requiring further follow up.
I don’t mind doing this, of course. I just feel like I’m doing it inefficiently. I also have a tendency to reread the police reports for cases I have to make sure I haven’t missed anything, which also takes time and is inefficient when almost always I haven’t missed something.
I realize I’m sort of rambling here. But does anyone have any tips for how to manage discovery efficiently and to not let it dominate one’s entire day if it doesn’t need to?