In Worley v. Central Florida Young Men’s Christian Association, 228 So.3rd 18 (Florida, 2017), the Supreme Court ruled disclosure of a financial relationship between a party, a plaintiff’s attorney and an expert, is no longer discoverable.  That Court did not, answer the question of whether the same rule applies regarding […]

“But, your honor, we conducted a search and collection from all sources we deemed appropriate and where we believed responsive and relevant information was located…I mean, honest judge.” In effect that is the response form a party being questioned about the extent and sufficiency of their discovery collection efforts. Is […]

Who is to blame for a “document dump” – a “snow storm” – an obfuscation of information? Sometimes its intentional and sometimes it is not. Everyone – both plaintiff and defendant; both teams of lawyers. Requesters are imprecise and can be over reaching. Producers are often inflexible and unreasonable. What […]

I still remember typewriters. Heck, I still remember carbon paper, mimeographs and bag phones. Would a company, “back in the day”, have ever asked an employee, “hey, we need you to bring your own typewriter, desk, chair, or carbon paper” to work with you?  Of course, not. In the recent […]

The Sedona Conference has a slogan: “Moving the law forward in a reasoned and just way”. That slogan is exactly the way I have described this impressive organization and what do. The Sedona Conference regularly drafts and disseminates commentary articles on various areas of the law and the practice of litigation. I […]

The party receiving discovery requests in litigation has the job of trying to understand the locations of potentially responsive data and documents; determining the identity of key custodians; and determining the most efficient and cost effective method for collection. The requesting party has as complicated job. For discovery requests to […]

What is the “Daubert” standard supposed to test? Daubert v Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 US 579 (1993). Daubert and the Federal Rule of Evidence 702 are intended to allow the court to act as a gatekeeper in keeping “junk science” away from jurors. The theory, I suppose, is that jurors […]

Trying to make the best of rules open to highly subjective interpretation… Discovery in litigation is the heart of the process. It is the system by which parties can obtain evidence from other parties and refine knowledge about the proof available for their causes of action and defenses. If done […]

In a lawsuit the discovery process should allow each party to explore evidence in the possession of opposing parties, which may assist in proving their respective claims. The defendant is at an advantage in this process, since they typically possess the bulk of documents, data and other evidence. Their familiarity […]

Redaction can be a wonderful tool. It allows for the removal, or at least obscuring, of legitimately objectionable material within a document without excluding the entire document. Redaction tools might be one of the most abused, misused, and dangerous tools delivered to lawyers in sometime. Every corporate defendant in most […]