From Documents to Material: Rethinking Discovery for the Modern Legal Professional

Discovery has long been synonymous with documents. Emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations. "Document dumps" have defined how legal teams collect, review, and produce evidence. But what if that framing is holding us back?

At Matey AI, we’ve found that shifting your mindset from documents to material opens the door to more efficient, focused, and intelligent discovery. Here's why that change matters and how it can save you hours of work.

Why “Documents” May Be Limiting Your Discovery Process

Legal professionals are trained to think in terms of what’s physically (or digitally) handed over: documents produced, Bates-stamped, paginated, and logged. But as the volume and variety of data explodes, especially with audio, video, chat logs, and cloud platforms, the document-centric approach starts to break down.

Documents are containers. But what we really care about is the material inside. The facts, the statements, the admissions, the inconsistencies.

That’s where the mindset shift begins.

Material: A More Flexible, Targeted Way to Think About Discovery

Let’s say you’re reviewing a 300-page deposition transcript. If you’re scanning it page by page, you’re focused on a document. But if you're looking for every reference to when the defendant “was aware” of an issue, you’re searching for material - evidence with specific legal relevance.

Material is defined by what matters. Not by format. Not by how it was delivered. Not even by whether it’s part of an official record yet. It's the substance that supports (or undermines) your legal arguments.

This is especially powerful for:

• Audio & Video evidence: One 45-minute recording might contain only two minutes of legally relevant speech.
• Email threads: A 10-email chain might contain a single sentence that shifts the entire case strategy.
• Chat logs or Slack messages: Dozens of casual comments might be immaterial until one violates a policy or contradicts a statement.

How This Shift Saves Time in Practice

Instead of: “I need to read through these 12 PDFs and flag anything that might be responsive.”

Try: “I need to extract every piece of material that shows the timeline of when the issue was first reported.”

When you start from the need for material, tools like Matey AI can help surface exactly what matters (statements, admissions, even contradictions) without having to wade through every line of every page. It's smarter searching, faster summarizing, and more targeted review.

Real-World Example: Time Savings from Material-Based Review

A paralegal we work with was handling a discovery set that included:

• 6 long-form deposition transcripts
• 4 hours of recorded interviews
• 3,500+ pages of Slack logs

Instead of reviewing each document linearly, she used Matey to identify:

• All instances where a specific employee acknowledged awareness of a safety hazard
• Every mention of a particular location and date range
• Contradictions in key witness statements across formats

Result? What used to take 2–3 full days took under 4 hours. That’s the power of thinking in material.

The Bottom Line: It’s Time to Break the Document Mindset

In the age of digital evidence, "documents" are just one format among many. By shifting your focus to material, you empower your legal team to work faster, smarter, and more effectively.

And if you’re using Matey AI, this shift isn’t just theoretical. It’s built into how the platform works. We help you find what matters, not just where it’s stored.

Want to see how this works in action?
We’d be happy to show you how Matey identifies material across any discovery set: text, audio, video, or mixed.

‍