Special Report on e-Discovery: The Revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

The 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ('FRCP') were anticipated by some corporate counsel with Y2K-like gloom and doom predictions. In particular, many wondered aloud whether the rules would have the effect of placing reasonable limits on electronic discovery, or whether instead they would open the floodgates and drown us all in a sea of electronic document production. However, the past year has shown that, like the Y2K hysteria that went out with a whimper, the fretting over the negative impact of the amendments may have been overblown. Although there were a couple of notable surprises, most federal courts addressing e-discovery disputes under the new rules issued opinions consistent with prior case law. This article identifies some of these opinions from the period post-dating the rules amendments to draw some lessons that are emerging.