Advocacy In E-Discovery More Important Than Ever

In this day and age, advocacy starts with competence in ESI issues. An effective advocate must be able to assess e-discovery needs and issues, implement appropriate preservation procedures, advise clients on options for storage and preservation, understand the client's ESI systems and storage, and handle the management, review and production of ESI in litigation. But this knowledge by itself is not enough. Only with an understanding of how the amendments to the Federal Rules account for issues pertaining to ESI can the attorney meaningfully advocate for the client.

 Relevance and Proportionality Defines the Scope of Discovery

One of the major changes to the rules is the deletion of the phrase "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence" in Rule 26. That language was previously used to describe the test for relevance, but it was often incorrectly applied to define the scope of discovery to the point where it swallows any limitation on the