eDiscovery Daily Blog
eDiscovery Trends: New York Pilot Program Requires Joint Electronic Discovery Submission for Cases Involving ESI
On November 1, 2011, the Southern District of New York implemented a new Pilot Program for Complex Cases in "response to the federal bar's concerns about the high costs of litigating complex civil cases." The program is "designed to improve judicial case management of these disputes and reduce costs and delay" and will run for eighteen months.
Fourteen types of civil lawsuits are designated as "complex civil cases," including "stockholder's suits, patent and trademark claims, product liability disputes, multi-district litigation, and class actions." District court judges have the power to add or remove a case from the pilot, even if it does not fall in these categories.
Parties to complex cases must submit Exhibit B, Joint Electronic Discovery Submission if they believe relevant ESI that is potentially responsive to current or future discovery requests exists. In addition, parties must certify that "they are sufficiently knowledgeable in matters relating to their clients' technological systems to discuss competently issues relating to electronic discovery, or have involved someone competent to address these issues on their behalf." They must also meet and confer prior to the Rule 16 conference on preservation; methodologies for search and review; sources of ESI; limitations on the scope of production; form of production; managing privileged material, including inadvertent production, clawback and quick peek agreements, and Rule 502(d) orders; and the costs of production, cost-saving measures, and cost allocation.
So, what do you think? Should more jurisdictions adopt such a program? Or should they wait until the results of this pilot are published? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Case Summary Source: Applied Discovery. For eDiscovery news and best practices, check out the Applied Discovery Blog here.
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