TREC Legal Training Topics:  Negotiated Search Protocol
April 7, 2006

Minutes of Rule 26 Meet and Confer Conference held April 7, 2006 in the case of Pyrene, et al. v Empire Cigarettes 

Counsel representing Plaintiffs Benzo Pyrene et al., and counsel representing Defendant Empire Cigarettes, met this afternoon to discuss the set of search terms to be used in conducting discovery on the following five requests to produce.   For each of the five discovery requests, defendant made an initial proposal on search terms, plaintiff countered with an alternative proposal, and the parties continued to go back and forth until a mutually acceptable set of keyword choices with Boolean operators was reached.  Consensus was obtained in all five cases without need to resort to the further involvement of the court.   For the record, the following memorializes the iterative proposals made by the parties, the last listed of which represents their joint final consensus search string.

Legend:    ! = allows further stem of any length
                 w/5 =  within 5 words of
      w/page = within the same page as

      1.  All documents discussing or referencing scientific research  
on the effects of secondhand smoking published prior to 1985.

Defendant’s Initial Proposal:   “secondhand smok!” and (finding or science or “scientific research” or research) and (1985 or 1984 or 1983 or 1982 or 1981 or 1980 or 197! or 196! or 195!)

Plaintiffs’ Counterproposal:   secondhand or “second hand”   

Defendant’s Rejoinder:  (find! or result! or effect! or consequence!) w/page (secondhand or “second hand”)    

Plaintiffs’ Rejoinder:  ((find! or result! or effect! or consequence!) w/page (secondhand or “second hand”)) or (other! w/5 smok!)

      2.  All documents that expressly link secondhand smoke to being  
a medical health hazard.

Defendant’s Initial Proposal:  secondhand and (risk or “health risk” or hazard)

Plaintiffs’ Counterproposal:  secondhand or “second hand”

Defendant’s Rejoinder:  (secondhand or “second hand”) and (link! or refer! or correlate! or relation!) 

Plaintiffs’ Rejoinder  ((secondhand or “second hand”) and (link! or refer! or correlate! or relation!))  or (other! w/5 smok!) 
 
      3.  All documents discussing severe asthma attacks in children.

Defendant’s Initial Proposal: (“severe asthma” or “asthma attack!”) and child!

Plaintiffs’ Counterproposal:  (asthma! or bronch! or respire! or breath! or trach!) and (child! or young! or juve!) 

      4.  All documents relating to defendants’ tobacco advertising,  
marketing, or promotion plans in the People’s Republic of China.

Defendant’s Initial Proposal:  (advertising or marketing or promotion) and China

Plaintiffs’ Counterproposal:  (advertising or marketing or promotion) and (China or PRC or Asia or “Far East” or Communist or People or Shanghai or Beijing or Peking or “Hong Kong”)

Defendant’s Rejoinder:  (advertising or marketing or promotion) and (China or PRC or Asia or “Far East” or Communist or Shanghai or Beijing or Peking or “Hong Kong”)

      5.  All documents previously filed in a prior state of federal  
court proceeding relating to destruction of records under defendants’  
existing records retention policies and practices.

Defendant’s Initial Proposal:  “records” and “destruction”

Plaintiffs’ Counterproposal:  destr! or elim! or dispos! or purg! or recycl! or retain! or reten!