Today, lawyers and clients devote a great deal of time, effort, and expense to discovery. More often than not, discovery, and not trial, is the central battleground of a case. Most civil lawsuits in federal court end before trial, either by pretrial settlement or on dispositive motion. In either case, the fruits of discovery can be critical to the outcome. The need for analytical and strategic guidance on problems in discovery is heightened by the fact that much of it is handled by relatively inexperienced lawyers, and in the case of document production, legal assistants. Effective discovery is crucial.
This book is written to address that need. It describes the problems that civil litigators encounter most frequently in pretrial discovery and presents suggestions and strategies for solving these problems. Following a background discussion on the scope and types of discovery, discovery problems are presented as hypotheticals (many of which the authors have encountered in their experience) followed by a discussion that includes the law and helpful practice tips. In this edition, particular emphasis has been placed on discussion and interpretation of the new rules, and evolving case law, concerning discovery of electronically stored information (ESI).