Discovery Reform Comes to the Northern District

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has placed some much-needed structure into the e-discovery process for cases before it. The structure comes in the form of the district’s Guidelines for the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information. Don’t let the term “guidelines” imply optionality. In addition to most of the guidelines being phrased in mandatory terms, as of the end of November 2012, the standing order for all judges of the Northern District now requires that all joint case management statements include a certification that the parties have reviewed the guidelines and met and conferred regarding reasonable and proportionate document preservation steps. There is also a Model Stipulated Order Regarding Discovery of Electronically Stored Information for Standard Litigation which tracks the guidelines.

The guidelines include topics relating to ESI ranging from cooperation to discovery proportionality, preservation, specific ESI topics for discussion in the Rule 26(f) conference, informal discovery, disputes regarding ESI, and the ESI-related materials that all counsel involved in a case in the district are to be “familiar” with.