Preparing for Imminent Changes to Federal and State Court Rules on Electronic Discovery

On December 1, 2006, sweeping changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing the discovery of electronically stored information, or "e-discovery," are scheduled to take effect. In response, many state courts have amended, or are in the process of amending, their procedural rules regarding e-discovery.¹ This means that every federal court case and many state court cases will require attorneys to advise their adversaries of the details of their clients' electronic data and document management systems and, in many instances, to produce electronically stored information, including company e-mails.

Furthermore, the new Federal Rule amendments require that attorneys understand their clients' electronic data retention policies as early in the litigation as possible, regardless of the nature of the claims, the amounts in controversy (assuming the jurisdictional minimum case value has been met in federal court cases), or the nature of the clients' business. A company should be