Stay tuned…. Back to News. PDF Print. John J. Commercial Litigation Discovery Counsel Services. Back to top. Email Disclaimer. Please note that unsolicited emails and attached information sent to McGuireWoods or a firm attorney via this website do not create an attorney-client relationship. If you are not a McGuireWoods client, do not send us any confidential information. We may not respond to unsolicited emails and do not consider them or attached information confidential.
That means we may disclose unsolicited emails and attachments to third parties, and your unsolicited communications will not prevent any lawyer in our firm from representing a party and using the unsolicited communications against you. The responding party may state that it will produce copies of documents or of electronically stored information instead of permitting inspection. The production must then be completed no later than the time for inspection specified in the request or another reasonable time specified in the response.
Rule 34 b 2 C Objections. An objection must state whether any responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of that objection. An objection to part of a request must specify the part and permit inspection of the rest. Consequently, boilerplate objections are no longer acceptable in federal courts. In fact, general objections by their very nature appear entirely prohibited under amended Rule But the drafters have provided clear guidance as to stating whether responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of an objection.
Considering the nature of the amendment to Rule 34, there is perhaps no longer such a thing in federal courts as form responses to document demands. That being said, litigators can operate under a general framework while individually tailoring objections to specific document demands. General Framework for Objections under Amended Rule 34 The traditional approach of first asserting objections and then identifying responsive documents should be reversed.
Some litigators have been taking this approach for years though without necessarily complying with the requirements under amended Rule 34 in a desire to indicate a level of cooperation and avoid an appearance of obstructionist tactics. When incorporating the requirements of amended Rule 34, a response to document demands should include three sections: 1 identification of responsive documents, 2 objections and 3 an indication of how a search is limited in scope.
Following a reasonable search, Defendant has identified the following documents responsive to this request…. This request is overbroad as it places no limitation on relevant time frame despite the subject matter of this litigation occurring from [ indicate date range ]. Defendant has therefore limited its search to materials from [ indicate date range ]; and,.
This request is not proportional to the needs of the case considering 1 the marginal importance of the materials to the claims and defenses in this litigation and 2 the substantial cost to identify additional responsive materials balanced against the amount in controversy. Upon request by Plaintiff, Defendant is willing to meet and confer regarding its response to this document demand.
Regarding the above objection as to proportionality, this format can be used for any of the proportionality considerations in Rule 26 b 1 , as amended on December 1, However, it may be necessary to provide additional detail to explain the asserted lack of importance of materials or to support an objection based on cost to comply versus amount in controversy.
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