The capability of easily retrieving a select group of records from a database is the control that you need for litigation purposes. The software program you choose should give you this control by providing the capability to conduct a simultaneous comprehensive search and retrieval of your database records and full text documents for information critical to your case. It should enable you to conduct a search of each record by individual fields or multiple fields. Once these records have been retrieved, they are then available for on-screen viewing (if images are attached), editing, and generating reports.

Software should enable you to search keyword, terms, etc., in each individual record, and also search full text documents that are directly linked to the records for these same keyword or terms simultaneously. This includes concurrent searches of any cross-references, notes, or issue codes you may have imbedded in the full text documents.

Since the search feature is so powerful and critical to any database application, it is important that you become very familiar with this function and can search for and retrieve information with ease.

The purposes of searching for and retrieving records are: 

• To generate on-screen, printed reports, or reports saved to disk.
• To retrieve records for editing purposes.
• To retrieve records to view the information or for reviewing testimony from full text documents such as depositions.
• To retrieve records that are linked to graphic images of documents so that you can view the graphic images of these documents on-screen or print them out.

This is an example of a database search using Microsoft Access.