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You’ve no doubt heard it again and again—the key to winning lawsuits is to document, document, document. Courts don’t lend much credence to documents that appear after the fact, often suspecting that such notes are made up to cover discrimination.

Set reasonable, objective goals that can be achieved with sufficient effort in the time allotted in the PIP. Don’t create impossible goals that can’t be achieved absent Herculean efforts.

Under the rules of “discovery,” employees (and courts) are privy to almost any employment-related document during a dispute. Keep that in mind when you’re preparing in-house documents, formal and informal. Here are a few do’s and don’ts.

Having a group of employees interview job applicants is a great way to identify the best candidates. But a would-be supervisor may disagree with a hiring committee’s candidate recommendation. If that happens, be sure to document exactly why he or she rejected the committee’s choice.

I work for a police department. When we need to counsel an employee, but not yet discipline them, how do we document the counseling session?

Communication that used to take place over landlines or at a press conference now takes place over a long list of social media services. What happens in the case of a lawsuit?

The IRS and ICE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding under which the IRS will provide information to ICE. Senators have asked the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to look into ICE’s access to taxpayers’ data and how it plans to use it.

We’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating: The best way to prevent lawsuits is to carefully document every employment decision. HR professionals and supervisors should be able to show exactly when a decision was made, who made it and what the basis for the decision was.

Thorough and accurate documentation is what wins lawsuits. Here are seven occurrences you should always write up.

The five elements every disciplinary document should include.