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Appellate Review Of Discovery Orders In Federal Court: A Suggested Approach For Handling Privilege Claims, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

The federal circuit courts of appeals have generally recognized that a party suffers real hardship when the district court erroneously orders it to disclose privileged information. Review of the disclosure order after final judgment is usually an insufficient remedy; once the information has been disclosed, it can never again be fully confidential. Consequently, the courts have struggled to provide a mechanism by which such orders can be immediately appealed. However, privilege orders presenting novel questions of law or issues of first impression do not clearly fit within the doctrinal requirements of the most common methods of interlocutory review. Appellate courts …