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Towards A New Paradigm For E-Discovery In Civil Litigation: A Judicial Perspective, William Matthewman

Florida Law Review

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide the basic framework for production of discovery that is relevant and proportional to litigants’ claims and defenses. In the past, litigants and attorneys far too often used these rules to obstruct the discovery process rather than to facilitate it. This Old Discovery Paradigm used overbroad discovery requests, boilerplate discovery responses, dilatory behavior, and a lack of cooperation among opposing counsel. However, with the emergence of ever-expanding technologies using email, texts, and other forms of electronic communication, the modern legal system requires a New E-Discovery Paradigm to govern how litigants, their counsel, and judges …