Mamas, don't let yore babies . . .

[goldfish]

I would think that you would use paralegals for the grunt work such as this.

. . .

Now it's a different story if you work a cushy corporate legal job.

Oh, we use the para's all right. Without them, it would be even harder. But we still have to attorney-review all of the pages.

Example--Secnior associate tells me "I need a depo book for Witnesses X, Y and Z"
I have the para's print up a copy of every page we have produced with these witnesses' name on it (as sender, recipient, subject, etc).
Para's drop 30 boxes in my office. Okay, 30 boxes is a lot for 3 witnesses. Maybe 20 boxes -- between 50,000 and 60,000 pages.
I review these pages (yippee!), trying to find anything that the witness might get asked.
(Anything in another language goes to translation at this stage)
I "bucketize" them (drop them into basic categories), and the para's chron them, and de-dupe (i.e., often a duplicate is produced, such as if it's an e-mail from X to Y, it will show up in both of their files. Electronic documents are de-duped by computer first -- sort of -- but paper docs have to be de-duped by the para's).
Para's assemble the binder from the papers I give them. It might consist of 100 or 150 hot docs, or at least hot enough to ask the witness about before the deposition.
Rinse and repeat. :D

I know, it's what litigators do. And it's part of the leveraged system wherby partners make money by having associates do more work.

Oh, and our corporate associates? They have very little to do now (unlike 2-3 years ago). In fact, litigation groups draft non-busy corporate associates for document review.

Well, I'm back to work.