New amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective on Dec. 1. Are you ready?

The focus of this column is answering one simple question: how will these changes affect the way you handle discovery? To comply with the spirit and the letter of these rule changes, you may need to make some adjustments to your discovery practice.

The revised rules emphasize case management and proactive discovery by adding several mechanisms to front-load discovery decisions and emphasize proportionality in the discovery process. They also provide guidance for when sanctions for failure to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) are appropriate.