Question 1

What is a reasonable electronic search?

Accepted Answer

One whose scope and method are rationally connected to the issues, proportionate under the CPR 31.7 and PD 31B factors, tested against the data (sampled terms, validated stopping points) and documented so its description in the disclosure statement or DRD is accurate and its limits are stated. It is a standard of process, not of perfection: relevant documents can be missed by a reasonable search, and unreasonable searches can fail in either direction, keyhole or landslide.

Question 2

Do we have to search backups?

Accepted Answer

You have to preserve them and address them; you rarely have to restore them at the outset. PD 31B makes accessibility and retrieval cost part of the reasonableness balance, so the defensible pattern is: catalogue and preserve the snapshots, search the live sources, and restore selectively where a demonstrated need (typically suspected deletion, or gaps in live data) justifies the cost, with the analysis recorded in the DRD.

Question 3

Can we rely on keywords alone?

Accepted Answer

PD 31B warns against exactly that: keyword searches alone may be inadequate, over- and under-inclusive at once. Keywords are one lever among seven, working with custodian and date scoping, analytics, review and sampling. A search description that says "we applied the agreed terms" and nothing else is describing a culling step, not a search.

Question 4

Are we required to use TAR?

Accepted Answer

Not required, but in volume cases expect to explain a decision not to: the DRD asks the question, the courts have endorsed the technology since Pyrrho, and a party proposing expensive linear review of a large population will face the obvious proportionality point. The safe course is to make the decision on tested numbers and record it either way.

Question 5

A relevant document has surfaced that our search never caught. Is the certificate wrong?

Accepted Answer

Not necessarily. If the search was reasonably designed, tested and honestly described, a missed document is the accepted cost of reasonableness: disclose it now, check whether it signals a system at i c gap (a channel, a term family, a custodian), fix the gap if so, and record what was done. The certificate is wrong only if it described a search that was not in fact performed, which is precisely what the paper trail in §13 protects against. Remember also that a known adverse document is disclosable regardless of any search.

Question 6

Who decides if the parties cannot agree terms?

Accepted Answer

The court, at the CMC or on application, and it decides best when handed short, numbered disputes with hit data and sampling evidence attached. Parties who arrive with tested positions usually settle the list at the door; parties who arrive with adjectives get orders neither side likes. cflab. u k · e-disc ove r y. u k ©2026 Computer Forensics Lab Ltd ·cflab.uk ·e-discovery.uk ·info@cflab.uk ·+44 (0)20 7164 6915 Page 21 of 24

What Is A Reasonable Electronic Search