Blanket Attorneys'-Eyes-Only Designations: How to Push Back

Most of the stack stays put. The few documents your client must see get pulled out and challenged.

How do you push back on a blanket attorneys'-eyes-only designation?

You test a sample, prove most of it holds nothing sensitive, and ask the court to release only the few documents your client actually needs to see.

What you need

• The protective order, open to its challenge clause, burden and deadlines
• The full AEO production, loaded with Bates numbers
• A coding sheet with three tags: competitive harm, personal data, neither
• Your client's list of the facts they need before they can give you instructions
• A review tool that codes the sample fast, with pricing you can check against each line of an e-discovery quote. Relevant e-Discovery's AI-assisted review runs cents per document, versus dollars per document and roughly $19K/GB for manual review, and it sits on the same footing explained in why predictive coding isn't the only defensible AI review.

Steps

1. Read the challenge clause. Note who carries the burden and how many days the other side gets to answer.
2. Pull a random sample from across the whole production, not just the first folder.
3. Code each sampled document by asking one question: would disclosure cause real competitive harm or expose personal data? Record the Bates number of every document where the answer is no, and spot-check any AI-coded call against the document itself, the lesson behind attorneys blaming legal AI vendors for hallucinations.
4. Build the short list of documents your client MUST see to instruct you, with one line on why for each. Shorter wins. Honestly, it does.
5. Ask for a redaction log if documents arrive redacted. In Jane Doe v. Adeleke, the Southern District of New York ordered a detailed log in August 2026, because the right to object means little when you cannot tell what is being withheld.
6. Send a written request covering the short list only, with your sample log attached.
7. Meet and confer with that list in hand. In a 2020 English Court of Appeal case reported by D Young & Co, one defendant's "considered and targeted" challenge to 6 documents won, while another's challenge to all 36 failed.
8. Offer a named-employee tier if they refuse outright. That same case let two named, pre-approved employees of each party into the highly confidential club.
9. Move the court on the short list. In New York, ask for costs and fees as well, since a Commercial Division judge has already sanctioned a party for excessive AEO designations under the state's frivolous-conduct rule.

Common mistakes

• Attacking the whole production. Fix: move only on the short list, because a judge can rule on a handful of documents and will balk at an entire production.
• Leading with the ethics argument that your client deserves to know everything. Fix: argue overbreadth, document by document, instead.
• Bringing a percentage with no exhibits. Listen, fix it by attaching the Bates-numbered sample log so the court can check every call itself.