Samantha L. Southall's Article on Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Appears in Corporate Counsel

Samantha L. Southall, shareholder in Buchanan's litigation section, recently wrote an article, "What Courts Say The New Discovery Rules on Proportionality Mean" which was published by Corporate Counsel. In the article, Samantha outlines several emerging trends following the first six months following the December 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

"Many hailed last December's amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) as an attempt to reduce fishing expedition discovery and believed that they would benefit those who sought to limit the scope of discovery. Indeed, many defendants have been making proportionality arguments in an attempt to limit discovery under the older, "unduly burdensome" standard for quite some time.

So, how is it going so far? The case law that has developed during the first six months of 2016 show that, while courts will limit the scope of discovery when it is truly disproportionate to the needs of the case or duplicative of existing discovery, they also will order production of easy-to-obtain and relevant information. Thus far, the following trends have started to emerge."