Document redaction

What breaks: redactions get made in whatever tool was open that day and the log is a text file somebody keeps locally, so the record of why a page was withheld is often the thing that goes missing. A paralegal spends days re-deriving the basis for a page that was already cleared, and a reviewer who questions one redaction has nothing to point at. What the workflow does: it takes the set approved for production, applies the redaction grounds the matter owner already agreed, and writes one line per redaction recording the page, the ground, who approved it, and when. The redacted copy and the log are versioned together, so the document that went out and the log describing it cannot drift apart. A redaction applied outside the workflow is flagged as unlogged, and a ground that is not on the agreed list goes back to the reviewer rather than being applied quietly. The production package is assembled from the log rather than assembled first and described afterwards. What a person still approves: a lawyer applies or removes each redaction, and the matter owner approves the production set before it is sent.