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Discovering Innovation: Discovery Reform & Federal Civil Rulemaking, Brooke D. Coleman

Faculty Articles

Federal civil rulemaking—the process by which the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are created and maintained—has simultaneously been described as a crisis and a crowning achievement. This Article departs from this binary and pragmatically turns to a consideration of how the committee operates. Using the lens of discovery reform, this Article examines how the rulemaking process has evolved over the past 35 years. The ups and downs of discovery reform have inspired the committee to adopt many modern rulemaking innovations. Those innovations, this Article argues, are critical to the success of the rulemaking process because they provide rulemakers with better …