Law Commons^™

Third-Party Modification Of Protective Orders Under Rule 26©, Patrick S. Kim

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that similarly situated litigants always should be given access to protected discovered materials, while nonlitigants should gain access to protected materials only in exceptional circumstances. This approach effectively balances the privacy and property interests of the original parties and the intervening parties with the interests of adjudicative efficiency. Part I establishes that there is no general public right of access to civil discovery and that courts should disregard such purported rights when considering whether to modify a protective order. Part II identifies three interests that courts should weigh when considering whether to modify a protective order: the …

"Show And Tell": An Analysis Of The Scope Of The Attorney-Client Waiver Standards, Roberta M. Harding

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As today's society becomes increasingly litigious, document productions, a major discovery tool, are growing larger. One inevitable consequence of this phenomenon is the increased risk that communications protected by the attorney-client privilege may be inadvertently disclosed. Privileged communications may also be disclosed to an adversary under more questionable circumstances: specifically, the intentional, strategic disclosure of privileged information favorable to the disclosing party's position.

In any case involving the disclosure of privileged information, the court must initially decide whether the privilege is waived. To resolve this threshold issue courts apply one of the three waiver tests. If a court decides that …

Automatic Disclosure And Disuniformity In The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The 1993 amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(1) imposes automatic disclosure and is the most controversial formal proposal to revise the Federal Rules ever developed. The provision requires litigants to divulge information that is important to their cases before commencing formal discovery. The amendment also permits all ninety-four federal districts to vary the revision or to reject it completely. Moreover, judges and parties in specific cases may modify any disclosure requirements adopted by the districts.

The amendment has remained controversial since it became effective on December 1, 1993. Less than a majority of districts subscribe to the Federal …